


Taken Away

by Vegorott



Series: Stolen [1]
Category: Lordminion777 - Fandom, Muyskerm - Fandom, Youtubers, jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Supernatural Elements, dark story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-02 18:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11515284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vegorott/pseuds/Vegorott
Summary: “So nice”. Two words that changed Jack’s, Mark’s, Felix’s, Bob’s, and Wade’s lives as they’re doing a casual panel.It starts out with a shy fan and ends when a sinkhole appears in the center of the stage and sucks the five men into a world that will test their survival skills, fighting abilities, and their friendships.





	1. Falling

Jack, or better known as ‘Jacksepticeye’ or 'Jack-a-boy’ or, his birth name, ‘Sean’ or whatever name he’d respond with a very loud 'yes’ to, let out a cheer that was basically a scream and waved with both hands to the group of people who were chanting his and his friend’s names.

He could feel his heart racing, cheeks hurting from smiling so hard and was unable to stop himself from hopping like a small child while the others sat down on the chairs and couch that were provided for them.

“Hey, Jack.” Jack didn’t hear his nickname being called as he blew out kisses towards the crowd, getting laughs and cheers from his silly action. “Jack.” Jack snapped his fingers and aimed his pointer fingers at several members of the crowd, earning even more cheers. “Sean!” Jack flinched and flailed a little when his birth name was shouted over the crowd. He quickly turned around, seeing that his friends were laughing at his reaction. “You gonna sit down with us or not?”

“I’m coming, Mark, I’m coming.” Jack said and plopped down next to his friend on the couch.

“You do this at every panel, Jack.” Jack’s other friend, Wade, chuckled.

“Maybe we should blindfold him next time and not let him see the crowd till we sit?” Bob, another one of Jack’s friends, suggested.

“And we can duct tape his mouth shut.” Felix, also commonly known by his YouTube name, PewDiePie, added.

“I no longer feel safe in this group, I need an adult.” Jack announced, looking around and smiling when he heard the crowd laugh.

“Alright, alright, let’s get this panel started.” Mark chuckled, slapping Jack in the back lightly before looking at the group of fans. “Who’s got the first question?”

“H-Hi.” A young man walked up to the microphone that was standing in the center of the rows and rows of seats.

“What’s up!?” Jack asked loudly, holding back a small laugh when the man’s face turned a little red and he let out a soft squeak.

“I…I was wondering when…” The man swallowed, having a hard time speaking. “When…” The rest of his question was too quiet to be heard.

“You’re going to have to repeat that.” Felix said.

“Us old people can only hear so well.” Mark added, cupping his ear with a hand.

“I…” The man repeated it but was still was not loud enough to be heard.

“I got this.” Jack stood up and ran over to the edge of the stage, he hopped over the stage edge and ran up the steps to the extremely shy fan. Jack heard the crowd scream, his friends laugh and the security guards groan as he reached the man. “What was your question? You can say it to me and I’ll repeat it for ya.”

“I love you, Jack!” A fan squealed and Jack made a heart with his hands towards the shout, going back to the man after the crowd screamed more.

“I was wondering when your guys’ next Prop Hunt video was going to be. It’s been a while and I really like those videos.” The man said, rubbing his arm and staring at the ground.

“Ah, good question.” Jack clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “High-five?” Jack asked, holding up his hand.

“O-Okay.” The man high-fived Jack, his cheeks redder than what they were before. Jack smiled at him before turning back around and running back to the stage, high-fiving several other fans as he went by. Jack leaped back on the stage and stopped in front of his friends “He…oh lord…” Jack exaggerated how tired he was to get a few laughs, leaning over, putting his hands on his thighs and panting loudly. “I need to lay off the cake.”

“No!” An audience member yelled.

“I like your thinking.” Jack pointed at the general area where the comment came from.

“What was the question, Jack?” Wade asked as Jack rejoined the group of Youtubers, reclaiming his spot next to Mark.

“He was wondering when the next Prop Hunt episode was going to be.” Jack said.

“Never!” Felix shouted, throwing both hands up into the air.

“I actually have an episode planned to come out sometime this week, I’m not sure what the rest of these goobers are going to do.” Mark answered.

“Since when did you ever actually plan ahead?” Bob asked with a light chuckle.

“Excuse me, I am a mature and responsible adult who can…” Mark’s voice trailed off when the other’s laughter got loud, preventing him from being heard. “Thanks.” He muttered, his eyes rolling and a small smile on his lips.

“We’re just messing with ya, Mark.” Jack nudged Mark’s side with his elbow. “But yeah, we’re not really sure.” He added, looking at the male fan.

“Okay. Thank you.” The man bowed his head before walking away from the microphone, but Jack managed to hear him say 'so nice’ very softly. Jack shrugged and decided that it was just the fan talking to himself.

“Next question please.” Wade said, hopping up to his feet, Bob and the others following suit soon after. Jack gave Mark a poke in the side while several questions were asked towards Wade, Bob, and Felix. He gestured towards the back where there were props that they were allowed to play with. Jack and Mark both slowly crept to the back of the stage, the other three men not noticing and the crowd laughing softly at them.

“Will you ever bring back Friday’s With PewDiePie?” A female fan asked into the microphone.

“I honestly have no i-” Felix’s answer was cut off when everything suddenly started shaking.

“Earthquake!” Someone cried and soon the whole auditorium was filled with screaming people.

“Everyone please remain calm. Again; everyone please re-” The announcement was cut off and it turned into a loud screech before turning off completely.

“What the fuck is that!” Mark shrieked, pointing to a small hole that was forming at the center of the stage, slowly growing as the ground continued to shake.

“Sink hole?” Bob suggested, trying to keep his balance.

“Not a sink hole!” Wade shouted as he was knocked over by a gust of wind. “Not a sink hole! Not a sink hole!” He repeated as the wind grew stronger and slide him towards the hole in the stage.

“Jesus!” Bob grabbed Wade’s arm and pulled him back towards him. Bob dragged himself and Wade towards the couch, the furniture unaffected by the wind. Wade grabbed the edge of the couch and crawled up to hold on to the top of it with Bob.

“I did not sign up for this!” Felix screamed, the comment being followed by plenty of curses in Swedish. He was gripping tightly to the chair he had fallen into when everything started shaking.

“Fuck!” Jack yelled when the wind grew in strength and swept him off of his feet. He crashed against the couch and managed to latch on to the top of it with Bob and Wade, all of them floating in the air from the wind trying to suck them down into the hole. Mark let out a shout when he was sent flying next, having lost his grip on the support beam he was using as a balance. Jack reached out a hand, trying to catch Mark, but missed and had to quickly get his hand back on the couch to prevent himself from falling off when Mark managed to catch his leg and held on to him.

“What is happening!?” Mark asked.

“Like hell I know!” Jack answered, already feeling his grip loosening on the couch.

“I can’t hold on!” Wade shouted, one hand falling away from the couch.

“I got you!” Bob wrapped an arm around Wade right before Wade’s other hand fell off. “Oh…no…” Bob groaned and soon after his own arm fell off of the couch, the two men getting sucked into the hole and disappearing.

“No!” Mark cried.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Jack screamed.

“I thought my death was going to be calmer than this.” Felix said, his nails digging into the soft cushion of the chair.

“You’re going to be fine-Felix!” Jack watched as Felix lost his grip as well and fell into the hole after Wade and Bob.

“Jack, I’m losing my grip.” Mark grunted, now only holding on to Jack’s ankle.

“Hold on, I’ll pull us up and over the couch.” Jack said, his voice higher as he strained to pull himself and Mark over the couch.

“Jack.”

“I got this!” Jack got one arm up to the elbow over the couch. “I can do this! I can!” Mark tried to say something, but it turned into a yell as Jack’s shoe slipped off and he was soon gone as well. “Mark!”

“So nice.” Jack heard those two words before the top of the couch snapped and sent him plummeting into the hole.

_x~x~x_

Jack opened his eyes and only saw gray. He could feel air rushing past his head from behind. He started moving his arms and discovered that he could move in the air as if he was swimming in water.

“The hell?” He asked himself out loud after flipping over so the wind was blowing against his face, thankful the wind wasn’t was powerful as the air that sucked them into this place. “Mark?” Jack saw the other man several feet away and a little lower than he was, most likely out like he was. “Mark.” He called a little louder, awkwardly swimming in the air towards his friend. “Mark!” Jack screamed when he was next to the man.

“What?” Mark asked after letting out a yelp of surprise and flailing his whole body. “Who, what, where, huh?” Mark said as he looked around, seeing the gray as well.

“All you’re missing is when and why.” Jack chuckled.

“Now is not the times for jokes, Jack!” Mark snapped. “Are we falling or are we floating and why am I basically swimming in the air!?”

“Why are you assuming I know the answers to those questions?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know! Asking them just makes me feel better!” Mark looked around some more. “Where are Bob, Wade, and Felix?”

“Well, you fell in right before I did and you were only a few feet lower than me, so the others might just be a lot lower at the moment.” Jack suggested.

“Should we swim down and try to find them?” Mark asked.

“Probably. But what happens when we finally land?” The two men stared in silence for a moment before shaking their heads.

“Not important at the moment. Let’s just find our friends first.” Mark aimed his head down and started 'swimming’, Jack soon doing the same. “If what you said is right, then we should run into Felix first since he fell after Bob and Wade.”

“Felix!” Jack shouted.

“Not right in my ear, man!” Mark covered his ear with a hand.

“Don’t be such a whiner.” Jack said.

“Me being deaf won’t help us.” Mark stated.

“Felix!” Jack shouted louder, laughing when Mark glared at him.

“Asshole.” Mark muttered.

“I know.” Jack chuckled.

“Mark, Jack, is that you guys?” Felix called from below.

“See? It worked.” Jack said, kicking his feet faster to go past Mark.

“Still an asshole.” Mark said and kicked his legs faster as well.

“You okay, Felix?” Jack asked when he reached the other man.

“Yeah. You guys okay?” Felix asked.

“All good here.” Jack gave Felix a thumbs up as Mark caught up to them.

“Bob and Wade shouldn’t be too far down. I think I might actually be able to see them.” Mark said, pointing down at the spots in the distance.

“Any ideas what’s going on?” Felix asked, the three men heading for the spots.

“I wish we knew. This is something out of a video game or something.” Jack said.

“I’m just waiting for me to wake up in my hotel room.” Mark said.

“Bob, Wade!” Jack called, the two men looking up at the sound of their names.

“Guys!” Wade waved his arms, the group meeting in the middle.

“Looks like we’re all fine.” Bob said.

“Till we land.” Felix said, looking down into the abyss.

“Is there even any landing? I can feel the wind, but I don’t feel like we’re falling.” Wade held his hands out, feeling the breeze.

“Maybe it’s like that spy movie with the kids when they thought that they were falling but really they were being floated?” Jack suggested.

“Spy Kids?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, how did they get out of that?”

“Do you really think I remember that? That movie came out years ago.”

“Wasn’t the falling thing from the second movie?” Felix asked.

“There were two?” Bob asked.

“Four.” Wade corrected.

“Can we change the subject? I don’t want my last living conversation to be about an old kid’s film.” Mark said.

“That one fan…” Jack rubbed the back of his head.

“Which one?” Mark asked.

“The shy one, the one I ran off of the stage for.” Jack explained. “I heard his voice right before the couch snapped and I was tossed into the hole.”

“What does that have to do with this?” Felix asked.

“You don’t believe he has something to do with this, do you?” Bob asked.

“At the current moment, we really can’t rule out any possibilities.” Wade said.

“Uh…guys,” Jack said softly.

“This is all probably just some elaborate joke.” Mark said.

“Guys…” Jack tried again.

“A joke? Does this look like a joke someone could pull off?” Felix scoffed.

“Ground.” Jack whimpered.

“If this is a joke it’s been going on for too long.” Wade said.

“Way too long.” Bob agreed.

“Guys!” Jack shouted.

“What!?”

“Ground!”

“Shit!” The men all screamed as they watched the ground rush towards them.

Jack threw his hands over his eyes and tried to mentally prepare himself to be slammed into the ground. He waited several moments and the feeling of the wind was gone and he could only hear one voice yelling now. Jack removed his hands and saw himself standing on the gray ground he had seen earlier. Mark was standing next to him, eyes still covered and screaming.

“Mark, Mark, stop shouting.” Jack patted Mark’s arm.

“Why aren’t I dead?” Mark asked.

“Remove your hands, goof.” Jack said. “We landed, somehow.”

“Everything’s…gray?” Mark commented, looking around.

“It looks like we’re in a forest.” Jack kicked his foot against the ground, a small rock getting launched several feet. He watched the rock go deeper into the gray trees. The trees all looked like the ones he climbed as a child, the sky looked like the sky he sees every day, he heard birds chirping and other creatures roaming the forest. Everything looked normal, but it was all gray. One dull shade of gray.

“Did we go color blind or something?” Mark asked.

“Maybe.” Jack was only half listening, still stunned by the gray forest.

“Looks like we lost the others again.” Mark sighed. “They shouldn’t be too far if it’s like last time.”

“Yeah…” Jack and Mark both took a step back when they heard something moving towards them.

“The fuck!?” Mark shouted when a small creature with one large eye in the middle of its large face came out of a gray bush. Their body was small compared to their head and it reminded Jack of a rat of some sort. The creature stared at Jack and Mark, the large iris in its eye separated so it could watch both men at once. It tilted its head side to side a few times before it scurried off, leaving the men dumbstruck.

“This isn’t California.” Jack said softly. “It might not even be earth.”


	2. Gray

“Don’t fall.” Mark called up as he watched Jack climb up the tree in front of him. 

“I got this-oh shit!” Jack cursed when the branch he had rested his foot on snapped off the tree, making the man dangle for a moment before he quickly put his foot on a different branch. 

“Jesus, Jack!” Mark stepped to the side to avoid getting hit by the falling branch. “Why aren’t I doing this? I rock climb...sometimes.” He added the last part as a mutter to himself. 

“Rocks and trees are completely different things.” Jack stated, hoisting himself up to the top of a thick branch. “Plus, I used to do this all the time.” 

“Like ten years ago!” Mark scoffed, flinching a little when Jack leaped off of the branch he was standing on and grabbed onto a nearby one. He latched his body to the branch and pulled himself up so he was now straddling it. “You’re like a squirrel, I thought you were a badger.” Mark chuckled weakly, anxiety making his heart race. 

“Don’t animal-shame me, bro.” Jack laughed, using his hand to block the light the gray sun was giving off and internally wishing he wore a different hat. 

“See anything?” Mark asked.

“Nothing but gray trees.” Jack answered.

“ _ Gray _ -t.” Mark said with a small smile. 

“Was that a pun?” 

“No…”

“Yes, it was.”

“Maybe.”

“Fucking hell, Mark.” Jack sighed.

“It’s my coping mechanism!” Mark protested.

“Whatever, I’m climbing up higher.” Jack muttered as he grabbed the branch above him, several gray leaves falling off of it and landing on Mark’s head. 

“I hope the others are okay.” Mark brushed the leaves out of his hair. 

“They’re all probably together like us, hopefully, we run into them before Felix has a panic attack.” Jack tugged on a thinner branch to test its durability. He kept going up until the branches were too thin to hold his weight and pushed leaves aside so he could see through the tree. “Hey, Mark.” Jack didn’t get a response. “Mark?” 

“Who’s there!?” Mark called out. 

“Mark? What’s up, man?” Jack looked down and saw that Mark was frantically looking back and forth. “Yo! Are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, yeah.” Mark shook his head. “I just thought I heard someone whispering…” Mark stared into the forest for another moment before shaking his head again. “Did you find anything?” 

“Yeah, looks like there’s a town or something. It’s pretty far, it’ll take a good while to get there.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Mark huffed. “Get back down here and let’s go. The sooner we’re back home, the sooner I can hug Amy and Chica and never let go.”  

“That’s adorable.” Jack chuckled. “And I’ll come down in a second, I wanna see if there’s like a path or something.” Jack grabbed onto a thin branch above him. “Hello there…” Jack nervously greeted when he saw a creature similar to the one they had seen earlier, but with a spike of hair on top of its head. The creature was sitting towards the end of the branch that Jack was holding down. “I’m gonna have to move my hand...okay?” Jack slowly started to raise the branch. “Easy does it.” The creature started moving towards Jack’s hand. “I...uh...I gotta go.” The creature got closer. “You’re as big as my hand, you’re not scary…” The creature sat on Jack’s fingers, tilting his head towards the man and blinking it’s one eye several times. “Do you want something?” The creature nodded and let out a chirp. Jack watched as the creature went down his arm and sat on his shoulder. “I guess I’ve got a new friend.” Jack removed his hand from the branch. “You better hold on tight, little buddy, I’m not the smoothest at getting out of the tree as getting in.” The creature nodded again, making it’s chirping sound as well. 

“Jack, who are you talking to?” 

“A new pal.” Jack scratched under the creature’s chin. “They’re actually pretty-” Jack let out a yelp when the creature tried to get into his shirt by the collar and tickling him. Jack ended up losing his balance and fell off of the branch. 

“Jack!” Mark yelled as Jack landed on a lower branch, his chest slamming into the wood. 

“Ow…” Jack wheezed.

“Jack, are you-” Mark’s question became another shout as Jack slide off of the branch and landed on the ground, back first this time. Mark ran over to Jack, seeing a small creature lightly tapping at his face with a paw, worry in his eye. “You okay?” Jack responded with a grunt, the creature moved off of Jack and sat next to Mark. “Want some help?” Another grunt. “How’s Billy?” 

“Fuck Billy.” Jack groaned as he sat up.

“Told you I should have done it.” Mark stated. 

“Shut up.” Jack rolled to his knees, rubbing his sore chest. “Looks like you made it out alright, little buddy.” Jack patted the top of the creature’s head. “Shocked I didn’t land on ya.” 

“I’m guessing this is the new pal you were talking about?” Mark asked.

“Yep, I’m gonna have to name them.” Jack said. 

“You actually don’t.” 

“Callie.”

“Callie?”

“Short for California.” Jack scooped up the creature and stood up. “Admit it, they’re adorable.”

“Jack, I don’t think we should-”

“Isn’t it!?” Jack held Callie in front of Mark’s face.

“Maybe a little.” Mark admitted and moved Jack’s hands away. “But don’t come crying to me when it-”

“Callie.” Jack corrected.

“When  _ Callie  _ bites you in the ass.” Mark finished. 

“I don’t think they’ll do that. Callie seems like a sweetheart.” Jack placed Callie on his shoulder, feeling they’re little claws latch to the fabric of his shirt as Jack started walking. “The town is this way, hopefully, we make it before it gets dark.”

“Think we can make a fire if we don’t?” 

“We’ve played plenty of survival games.” 

“We’re doomed.” 

“Probably.” The two men laughed and went deeper into the forest. 

_ x~x~x _

“I’m starving.” Mark groaned after almost an hour of nonstop walking. 

“Same, we should have eaten before the panel.” Jack sighed. 

“Maybe if someone could get their ass out of bed a little earlier, we could have.” Mark muttered.

“It’s not my fault we stayed up till four playing video games Mr. ‘One More Try’.” Jack scoffed.

“I was not going to let that level beat me.”

“Mario Maker is going to be the death of you.”

“Like I’d allow it too.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Maybe I have a snack or something in my pockets.” Jack patted at his jeans, pulling whatever was in them, Mark following suite. The two men sat down on a fallen log and checked their belongings.

“I have a lighter, a pocket knife, my wallet, half a pack of gum and a ponytail holder that Amy asked me to hold.” Mark listed off his things, holding them in both hands. 

“I’ve got my wallet as well, my keys, a melted candy bar and, oh shit.” Jack laughed he held up a small plastic container of whiskey. “I must have forgotten to take this out of my pants when we left the hotel.” 

“Good thing that didn’t break during your fall or you’d be smelling like whiskey ass till we got back.”

“I’ll smell like swamp ass for a week if that meant getting the others and going back home.” 

“Save the whiskey and candy bar, we’ll just chew some gum for now and eat the candy bar if we’re stuck out here overnight.” Mark said as he returned his belongings to his pockets except for the gum.

“Look at you sounding all smart.” Jack chuckled and pocketed his stuff as well. 

“Like you said, we’ve played a lot of survival games.” Mark said as he handed Jack a piece of gum. 

“But we usually die doing really stupid things.” Jack said.

“There’s a difference between our lives in video games and our real lives.” Mark popped a piece of gum in his mouth and kept the wrapper. 

“True.” Jack unwrapped his piece, handing a small chunk of it to Callie before putting the rest of it in his mouth. 

“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to give gum to animals.” Mark stated.

“Pretty sure they’re not supposed to be pure gray with one large eye.” Jack countered.

“If it dies-”

“Don’t come crying to you?” Jack finished, blowing a small bubble with the gum. 

“No need to be a bitch.”

“No need to be a douche.” 

“We’re such great friends.” Mark chuckled and stood back up. “Let’s keep going.”

“Can’t we stop for a little longer? My legs are killing me.” Jack groaned. 

“There’s probably a hotel at the town. I bet a bed feels a lot better than a rotten log.” 

“Good point.” Jack grunted as he stood as well and continued leading the way. 

The two walked in silence for a while, staring out into the woods and seeing more strange creatures. All of them small and rodent like and gray. Jack let out a loud huff of air before singing. 

“We’re going on a trip-”

“Don’t-”

“-In our favorite rocket ship-”

“I hate you-”

“-Soaring through the skies!”

“Little Einstein’s!” Mark joined Jack for the last two words and both men ended up laughing. Jack stopped when he felt Callie stiffen and their claws digging into his shoulder. 

“You alright, Callie?” The creature jumped off of Jack’s shoulders and ran off.

“I guess Callie had somewhere to...go…” Mark and Jack both turned their heads and were greeted by a large monster plowing through the forest, birds and other creatures running away from it. 

“Holy shit!” The men screamed and began running as well. 

Mark ended up ahead of Jack and leaped up when he saw a low hanging branch. He quickly scrambled up and held a hand down. Jack jumped and grabbed Mark’s hand with both of his. Mark grunted as he lifted Jack up to the branch and helped the other man get his whole body up and out of the way. They hugged the branch as the monster stormed past, shaking the ground and everything on it.

Both men sat in silence and stared in the direction the monster went until it was long gone. Callie leaped over from a different tree and ran over to Jack, climbing up his arm and nuzzling into his neck. Jack petted Callie’s head while Mark started screaming.

“What the fuck was that!? It looked like a fucking rhino! But rhinos don’t have five fucking eyes and three fucking horns! What the fuck!?” 

“That was something…” Jack said, calmer than what was expected, but still breathing heavily. “I think I’m in shock.” 

“I think my heart stopped.” Mark patted his chest as he gasped for air. “I haven’t ran like that in years.” 

“Signe is not going to believe this.” 

“I don’t even believe this and I just saw it.” 


	3. Apples And Bananas

“I never thought I’d ever hate the color gray so much in my life.” Mark muttered.

“ _ 50 Shades of Gray _ ruined it for me.” Jack chuckled weakly, his feet practically dragging against the ground. 

“I would laugh, but I don’t have the energy to muster that much effort.” Mark sighed. 

“How long have we been walking?” 

“Forever.” 

“Sounds about right.” 

“It’s all like the same shade, but it isn’t at the same time.” Mark wandered over to a patch of gray grass and sat down. “The sky getting darker is the only thing I can tell right now.” 

“I can climb back up a tree and see how far we are.” Jack offered. 

“And have you fall again? No thanks.” 

“I only fell cause Callie tickled me. It’s not gonna happen this time.” Jack held a hand out towards Callie, who was still sitting on his shoulder and the creature went onto the hand and allowed Jack to lower them to the ground. “Stay with Mark, little buddy, I’ll be right back.”

“They don’t understand you, Jack…” Mark held out the other man’s name as Callie went over to him and sat down in the grass next to him. “Alright, that’s creepy.” 

“Here I go.” Jack said before starting to climb up a tree. 

Mark watched as the branches moved and leaves fall, telling him that Jack was getting to the top of the tree much easier than the last time. How Jack had enough energy to do that, he’d never know. Mark patted at the grass while he waited, chewing on the inside of his lip and softly whistling. He eventually looked at Callie and saw that the creature was cleaning its face with its paws. 

“Now, do you actually understand us?” Mark asked. Callie sniffed before facing Mark and nodding their head. “That’s...I have no idea how to feel about this.” Mark clicked his tongue. “Any idea how to get us back to California?” Callie shook their head. “Great.” Callie got closer to Mark and placed a hand on his leg, looking as if they were sorry. “You’re giving me the same look Chica does when I scold her.” Mark chuckled. He looked back at the tree when he heard rustling and saw Jack fall from the tree, landing on his feet. 

“We’re halfway there.” Jack stated, brushing leaves from his shirt. 

“So, we’ll crash here for the night and we should be able to make it to the town before tomorrow night.” Mark rubbed the back of his neck. 

“I wish we didn’t leave our phones on that damn table.” Jack huffed. 

“I still think I would have won the ‘who gets the most texts during the panel’ game.” Mark grunted as he got back up. 

“We’re gonna need to make a fire, your lighter does work, right?” Jack asked. 

“It should.” Mark pulled out said lighter and flicked it, a small flame appearing on top of it. 

“We just need some wood, dry grass or leaves and we should be good.” Jack started walking but stopped when his stomach growled loudly. “We should probably save the candy bar for the morning so we have energy to walk, but I’m hungry enough to eat a whole cow.” 

“Do you want another piece of gum?” Mark offered.

“Nah, I think that just makes me hungrier.” Jack sighed. 

“Let’s focus on collecting the wood and leaves.” Mark patted Jack’s back and the two started searching the ground near trees, not seeing Callie take off on their own. 

“We’re going to need more than just twigs if we want a decent fire.” Jack said as he gathered more sticks. 

“There’s bound to be a fallen tree or a large branch somewhere.” Mark muttered. “I’m actually shocked neither of us has tr-” Mark let out a shout as he tripped over a log, sticks, and leaves flying as he fell. 

“You alright?” Jack asked as he walked over to the other man. 

“Yeah, little scraped up.” Mark answered, blowing a leaf off of his face. Jack offered a hand towards Mark and both men grunted as Mark got to his feet. “Found our log.” 

“We could put sticks and leaves around it and burn those till it catches on fire.” Jack suggested. “Think you can carry it while I get more sticks and leaves?” 

“I’m a big manly-man, no log will defeat me.” Mark crouched and lifted the log, letting out a loud huff of air as he held it against his chest. “This is heavier than expected.” He admitted as he started waddling away. “I’m heading back to our grass patch.” 

“I’m right behind ya.” Jack said, picking up whatever he could as they returned to their previous spot. 

“There!” Mark dropped the log in the center of the grass and patted off the pieces of bark on his shirt. 

“Where’s Callie?” Jack asked. 

“They’ll be back.” Mark got down on his knees. 

“I could make a terrible joke right now.” Jack chuckled.

“I will punch you in the dick and have no remorse.” Mark warned. 

“Love ya too.” Jack went down as well, going to the other side of the log after giving Mark half of the sticks and leaves. 

“What I would kill for some newspaper and gasoline.” Mark sighed as the two stuff the leaves under the log and placed sticks around it. “Why is the log crooked?” He asked.

“There needs to be air, so I’m making my side stand up.” Jack explained. 

“I’ve never wanted to be home so much before.” 

“Hey, Callie, what’cha got there?” Jack asked the creature as they rolled a familiar shape to him. “Is that an apple?” Jack picked up the fruit. 

“Are you sure it’s an apple?” Mark asked. 

“Give me your pocket knife.” Jack reached over the log to get the knife from Mark and used it to cut the fruit in half. “It’s definitely an apple.” Jack took a large bite out of it.”

“Don’t eat random gray things!?” Mark snapped.

“It’s an apple. Want some?” Jack tossed the other half to Mark. “You know you want it.” 

“At least it’ll be a tasty death.” Mark sighed before taking a bite as well. “It does taste just like an apple.” 

“Where did you get this, Callie?” Jack asked. Callie chirped several times before taking off. “Wait for us!” Jack called and went after the creature, apple in mouth. 

“Don’t leave me alone!” Mark called as well and followed the other man. 

“Apple tree!” Jack yelled a moment later.

“And there’s...banana’s?” Mark added pointing up at the other fruit in the tree. “That’s not how that works.” 

“Who cares? Food!” Jack leaped up on a branch and started shaking it, making several apples and bananas fall. 

“Not on me!” Mark covered his head and moved out of the way. “Rude.” 

“What do you think of cooked banana?” Jack asked after hopping back down. 

“How are you going to do that?” Mark began picking up some fruit with Jack. 

“Like a marshmallow, stab it with a stick.” 

“Sounds unsanitary.” Mark said.

“Sounds tasty.” Jack said back with Callie chirping in agreement.

“If we can get the fire going, I might give it a try.” Mark said. 

“I am a great chef.” Jack chuckled as the two headed back to their makeshift fire-pit. 

“I bet you could make a great fruit salad from these.” Mark teased. 

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” Jack laughed. “Do you want some cooked banana too, Callie?” Callie nodded their head. 

“You’re not taking Callie home.” 

“You’re not my mom.” 

“I wouldn’t want to be.” 

“Who wouldn’t want to be the mother of the greatest person ever?” Jack joked, sitting himself down next to the log and pulling out two long sticks from the pile. 

“That’s my grandmother’s job.” Mark piled his fruit on top of Jack’s and pulled out his lighter. 

“Aw.” Jack held out the word as Mark started lighting up some leaves and thin twigs. 

“I think I got it.” Mark sat down next to Jack, the fruit between them and he started eating another apple. 

“Sleeping tonight is going to be rough.” Jack said as he peeled two bananas. 

“As long as we can get at least some shut eye, tomorrow won’t suck as much.” Mark said through a mouthful of apple. 

“Could you swallow before speaking?” 

“What was that?” Mark took another, larger, bite of the apple. 

“I hope you choke.” 

“You’re such a nice friend.” Mark chewed a little before swallowing. “Hopefully the others found some food as well or made it to the town.” 

“Someone there has to be able to get us back.” Jack started eating one of the bananas while stabbing the other one through one of the sticks. 

“How did that sinkhole even happen? Sinkholes don’t act like that and they don’t send people to an alternate reality.” Mark kicked at the sticks with a foot, trying to get the flames to burn the log faster. 

“Magic.” Jack stated, holding the stick above the small flame. 

“That doesn’t exist.” 

“Are you seriously going to say that while surrounded by a gray forest and with Callie staring right at you?” Jack raised a brow.

“You’ve got a point.” Mark sighed. “Let’s just get home and forget about all of this.”

“That’s fine by me.” Jack agreed, letting out an impatient sigh a moment later. “Stupid thing is gonna take forever to cook with this small flame.” 

“The log isn’t even on fire yet, just eat an apple while you wait.” Mark said. 

“We’ll end up passing by the apple-banana tree on the way to the town, we could pick up some more.” Jack suggested. 

“I wish we had a bag to carry them in.”

“We got some large ass pockets, we could probably get a few apples in them.”

“I am not walking around with apple pockets.” Mark tossed the core behind him. 

“What about banana pockets?” Jack handed a piece of banana to Callie.

“That somehow sounds worse.” Mark helped himself to a banana. 

“Do you think they’ll be stars in the sky when it gets completely dark?” Jack asked, staring at the fire as he cooked.

“I have no idea if this place even has stars, let alone the constellations I know you’re going to be looking for.” Mark tossed the banana peel behind him as well. 

“It’d be nice to sleep under the stars, haven’t done that in a while.”

“Dude…” Mark pointed up and Jack followed the finger. 

“Woah.” Jack said in awe as the dimmed sun slowly turned into a moon, the sky going black and bright stars appearing. 

“Well...it’s a good thing we made a fire.” Mark commented as they found themselves in the dark. 

“That was really sudden.” Jack turned the banana over to cook the other side. “I’m glad it’s not cold though.” 

“The temperature didn’t change at all, it still feels like there’s still a sun warming us.” Mark stared at the moon. “This place gives me the creeps.” 

“It could be worse.” Jack shrugged.

“What could be worse than a gray forest, fucked up rodents, a fucking rhino that tried to run us over and a sun that decided to become a moon in a minute?” 

“All that, plus a screaming banshee.” 

“You just jinxed us.” 

“Whoops.” Jack chewed his lip. “Think that rhino will come back?”

“Now you’re purposely trying to jinx us!” Mark huffed. 

“Maybe they’re friendly like Callie, but were spooked?” Jack said. 

“I’m going to sleep.” Mark plopped down. 

“But I just finished cooking the banana.” Jack protested. 

“Help yourself.” Mark waved a hand as the other removed his glasses.

“Fine, none for you.” Jack stuck his tongue out at mark before removing the banana from the stick, giving some of it to Callie and eating the rest himself. 

Not long after that Jack let out a yawn, not realizing how tired he was till just now and hearing Mark lightly snore, telling him that the other man was already asleep. Jack yawned again before laying down, lightly chuckling as Callie went into his shirt and curled up into a tight ball. After saying night to Callie, Jack tucked his arms behind his head and shut his eyes, quickly drifting off. 

_ “So nice.” _

Jack woke with a start when he swore he heard something, Mark still out and Callie getting up as well, with Jack’s movement waking them up. 

“Hello?” Jack called out, feeling Callie leave his shirt. “Hello!?” Jack saw someone move in the trees. “Hey! Wait up!” Jack scrambled to his feet, waking Mark as well. 

“Wha…” Mark blinked several times and saw Jack running. “Jack?” Mark sat up, blinking several more times and putting his glasses on. “Jack!” Mark quickly got up as well and followed the other man. 

“Come back!” Jack called into the forest, slowing down when he no longer saw the person. 

“Dude, Jack, what’s up?” Mark asked when he caught up. 

“I swore I saw someone.” Jack said.

“There’s no one there, man.” Mark placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Let’s get going.”

“Yeah...let’s go.”


	4. Abandoned

“The sky’s getting darker again, we should be at the town soon.” Mark commented, finishing up his apple. 

“I hope there’s different food at the town, as much as I love fruit, I’m starting to get sick of them at the moment. A nice juicy burger sounds amazing right now.” Jack handed the last piece of banana to Callie. The creature sniffed it and tossed it aside, a look of annoyance on their face. “Looks like Callie’s sick the fruit too.” 

“Do you think they eat meat?” Mark asked as they stepped over some tall plants. 

“No idea.” Jack ducked under a branch and let out a cheer. “The town!” 

“Finally!” Mark threw the core to the side and the two men walked into the town, finding it empty. 

“There are no people.” Jack commented, voice heavy with disappointment. 

“No people, cars or anything that shows there’s life here.” Mark went up to a house and started knocking on the door. “Hello? Hello is anyone there? We need help?” Mark turned away and leaned against the door, seeing Jack putting his hands next to his mouth before shouting.

“Hello!?” Mark could have sworn that he heard that man’s voice echo throughout the entire town, 

“I knew you could get loud, but damn, man.” A familiar voice said.

“Wade!” Mark and Jack ran over to the man, who was standing with Bob several houses down. 

“Are you guys okay? Where’s Felix?” Jack asked.

“We’re fine and we don’t know where Felix is. We landed in the middle of the forest and just got here not too long ago.” Bob answered.

“All of the houses we’ve passed are empty. We haven’t seen anyone at all.” Wade added.

“Neither have we, it must be abandoned.” Mark said. “What are we going to do now?” 

“First, we need to find Felix, he’s been alone this whole time.” Jack said. 

“We could try getting to the top of one of the taller buildings and look for him.” Wade suggested. 

“If this town is abandoned, then nothing should be locked or we could break into them if needed.” Bob looked around as he spoke. 

“Not like there are cops to worry about.” Wade muttered. 

“Have you guys eaten anything? We still have apples and bananas.” Jack offered. 

“We’re good. We found this weird plant that had kiwis and strawberries on them.” Bob said. 

“Never knew I could hate fruit so much.” Wade groaned. 

“Maybe we can find some cans of food or something here, the town still looks brand new so they must have just left.” Mark said. 

“Quick question, what the fuck is that?” Wade asked when Callie climbed out of Jack’s shirt and sat on his shoulder. 

“Oh, this is Callie.” Jack introduced the creature. “They kind of just joined us, they’re the one who showed us where to get the apples and bananas.” 

“And they understand what we’re saying.” Mark added.

“Seriously?” Bob leaned towards Callie. “Nod your head twice if you understand.” Bob moved back when Callie did what they were told. “Well...holy shit.” 

“I knew you said you wanted to get a pet, but I don’t think that’s what any of us thought you’d get.” Wade said. 

“And you think I did?” Jack scoffed. 

“Let’s try to find Felix before it gets dark again.” Mark said. 

“That happened really fast.” Bob scratched the back of his head. “It didn’t make sense, how does the sun become the moon? That’s not how that works.”

“I’ve given up on the whole questioning this place.” Jack said. “Think that building’s open?” The man pointed at a hotel. 

“If not, we’ve got a great battering ram.” Bob patted his stomach. 

“When in doubt, just throw Bob against it.” Wade chuckled. 

“Remind me of that next time I get in an argument with someone.” Mark said as the four headed over to the hotel. 

“It’s locked.” Jack groaned after trying to open the door. 

“Alright on the count of three, we all push.” Wade said as he held the doorknob. The other three gathered around Wade and pressed their hands against the door. “Ready? One...two...three-ah!” The door opened easily and Wade fell to the floor. “What the hell!? You said it was locked!” 

“It was!” Jack protested. “I know we like to pull dick moves on each other sometimes, but I don’t think now is the appropriate time for that.” 

“You good?” Bob asked as he helped Wade to his feet. 

“Yeah, I just landed on my face.” Wade huffed, making the others laugh. 

“Do you think the elevator works? We’ve been walking all day and I don’t think I can handle stairs.” Mark said while they all looked around the lobby.

“Do we trust an elevator in an abandoned hotel?” Bob asked.

“I’m pretty damn lazy.” Mark chuckled. 

“Found one.” Jack called, waving his hands at the other men. 

“Have you tried it yet?” Wade asked as they walked over to Jack. 

“Nope, but if it doesn’t work, the stairs have to be close.” Jack stated as he pressed the button, shocked to see it light up. There was a soft ding before the elevator doors slowly opened. 

“Are we really going in there?” Bob asked.

“You wanna take fifteen flights of stairs?” Wade asked back, going into the elevator with Mark and Jack. 

“I’m good.” Bob stepped in as well and pressed the top button. 

“No elevator music?” Jack mused. 

“I could start singing.” Mark offered.

“I don’t think going deaf will help us.” Wade teased. 

“My singing is not that bad, a lot of people actually like it. Which one of us was in the  _ Five Night at Freddy’s Musical _ ?” 

“And who couldn’t hit that one high note?” Bob sang.

“How dare you, good sir?” Mark put a hand to his chest, pretending to be offended. 

“Considering that he’s not a professional singer like Nate, he didn’t do that bad.” Jack said. 

“At least someone’s being nice today.” Mark stuck his tongue out at Wade and Bob. 

“But that high note was terrible.” Jack added.

“Asshole.” Mark flicked Jack’s arm. 

“We’re on the top floor, we’re going to have to take the last flight up by stairs.” Bob said when the doors opened. 

“That room’s open.” Jack pointed out and went up to the hotel room. 

“This has jumpscare written all over it.” Mark muttered. 

“There’s someone in there! Hey!” Jack went into the room, Mark going in as well.

“Don’t just intrude in someone’s room!” Wade huffed. “Fine, don’t listen to me.” 

“If someone is in there, maybe they can help us find Felix and get home.” Bob said as he went after the two. Wade just let out another huff and followed. 

“Hello?” Jack was shocked to find the room fully furnished, just like the lobby. If this place was abandoned, why did it still look and work like people still lived here? “We just want to get back home, can you help us?” Callie twitched their nose and hopped off of Jack’s shoulder, joining Bob and Wade at the desk.  

“I don’t think anyone’s in here.” Mark said. 

“Looks like a family lived here before they left.” Bob commented, holding a picture frame in his hand. “Two parents and a little boy by the looks of it.” 

“I recognize that kid.” Wade said. 

“You do?” Mark asked, looking at the photo as well. 

“Yeah, he and his parents were at the convention. The little boy gave me a wooden car he made himself, it’s still at the hotel.” 

“You mean, like this wooden car?” Bob asked, picking up a toy from the desk he got the photo frame from. 

“The exact same one…” Wade took the toy and examined it. “That’s really creepy.” 

“It just has to be a coincidence. Right?” Mark chuckled weakly. 

“Fucking-hell!” Jack’s curse made them turn their heads and they all yelled when they saw their friend being attacked by a large being in a gray trench coat. “Get away from me, you fuck!” Jack stumbled back and landed on the couch, holding the being away from him. Jack grimaced as drool slowly dripped through its sharp teeth and onto his shirt.  

“Get off of him!” Mark shouted as he grabbed the being by its shoulders and pulled him away from Jack. 

“Move, Mark!” Bob warned, a baseball bat in hand. Mark quickly ducked and Bob cracked the being upside the head with the bat and made it fall to the ground. 

“Damn, Bob.” Wade complimented. 

“What I lack in speed I make up in with strength.” Bob chuckled. “But I think I’m going to have a heart attack.” Bob handed Mark the bat and sat down on the couch with Jack. “That adrenaline did not last long.” 

“You good, Jack?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, little stunned and wet, but I’m not damaged.” Jack answered.

“Good to hear.”

“Is it dead?” Wade asked, jabbing his foot into the creature’s side. 

“We could toss it out the window, I think there’s an awning beneath us it can land on to make its landing a little softer.” Mark said. 

“Let’s just leave it, it doesn’t look like it’s getting up anytime soon.” Jack said.

“Alright, were there any more bats, Bob?” Mark looked over the bat before handing it back to Bob. 

“I know there’s a second one at the desk. That’s where I found the first one. If we find the bedroom, we might find more.” Bob suggested.

“I only knew the kid liked baseball cause he was wearing his baseball shirt, he went on and on about being happy his team won the tournament this year.” Wade said as Mark started searching. “The kid in the picture was wearing the shirt, same number and all.” 

“That’s extra creepy.” Bob said. 

“This hotel is pimped out.” Jack commented, petting Callie’s head when they went back on his shoulder. “Most hotel rooms don’t have a separate living room and kitchen and bedroom.” 

“Bedrooms.” Mark corrected. “The kid and the parents have their own.” 

“I’ll go help him, you two recover.” Wade said before leaving the room. 

“Kid is a baseball fanatic.” Mark commented from the child’s room. “Like, this room just screams ‘I’m a preteen boy’, it almost looks fake.” 

“It’s like someone tried to make a room for someone that they only know one thing about them.” Wade agreed. “There’s four more bats in here? No normal child has five bats, no matter how much they like baseball.” 

“At least there’s one for Felix too when we find him.” Mark said, grabbing two bats while Wade got the others. 

“You two ready to go?” Wade asked, handing one of his bats to Jack. 

“The parents have some as well?” Bob asked, grunting as he stood.

“We found them all in the kid’s room.” Wade stated.

“The kid has five bats? That’s at least three too many for one kid.” Jack said, getting back up as well. 

“The room was too much for a kid.” Mark said. “Way too much baseball stuff.” 

“That’s the parent’s problem, let’s get to the roof.” Bob said. 

“Wanna lead, Mr. Strength?” Mark bowed as he gestured towards the door. 

“As long as you don’t mind going up stairs slowly.” Bob chuckled and left the room with the other three men behind him. Jack looked at the creature again before shutting the door all the way. 

“Um…” Bob blinked, closed the door and reopened it. “We’re already on the roof?” 

“What?” The four men stepped out through the door and found that they were indeed on the roof. 

“Who builds the top floor on the roof like that?” Jack asked, looking at the structure. “Someone did not pay attention in school.” 

“The fewer stairs the better.” Bob said, going to the edge of the roof. 

“Do you see him?” Mark asked as he, Jack, and Wade went to the edge of the roof as well. 

“Nope.” Bob popped the ‘p’ of the word. 

“Felix!” Jack screamed.

“In my ear dude?” Wade snapped. 

“You got any better ideas?” Jack asked. 

“Point taken. Felix!” Wade screamed as well. 

“Felix!” Mark and Bob joined in. 

“Guys!?” They stopped when they heard a response. 

“Felix!?” Jack called back. 

“Where are you!?” Felix yelled from the forest. 

“Follow my voice!” 

“I’m trying!” 

“I think I see him!” Bob pointed down. “Jack, Mark, go down there and get him, me and Wade will stay here to make sure you get to Felix.” 

“Gotcha!” Mark and Jack got up, took their bats, an extra for Felix, and ran back into the building. 

“Elevator’s faster.” Mark said as he pressed the button, the doors opening immediately. 

“I hope Felix is okay.” Jack said while they rode back down. 

“He shouldn’t be too bad off if he’s able to yell back like that.” Mark said. 

“True, he’s probably starving.” 

“He might have found a weird combo plant like all of us did.” 

“Come on, move faster.” Jack groaned at the elevator. 

“It can only go so fast.” Mark said.

“I know!” Jack huffed. “Thank the Lord!” Jack took off when the elevator opened back up, Mark following right behind him. 

“We were at the back of the building and Bob and Wade should be able to guide us from there.” Mark said. 

“Felix!” Jack called as they reached the back of the hotel. 

“I think I’m getting closer.” Felix called back. 

“Go a little to the right and you’re good!” Bob said from above. 

“Felix!” Mark yelled this time. 

“Mark!? Jack!?” Felix pushed several branches away, eyes widening when he saw the other two men. “Finally!” 

“You okay, man?” Jack asked.

“I’m all good, are you guys okay and where are Bob and Wade?” Felix saw the bats in Mark’s and Jack’s hands. “And bats?”

“We’re fine, Bob and Wade are on top of the Hotel behind us and the bats are from inside the hotel.” Mark explained. 

“Fuck!” The three men looked up when they heard Wade scream. 

“They’re being attacked!” Jack yelled. 

“It’s probably the asshat who attacked you! We have to help them!” Mark was about to go back around the building, but stopped when he saw one of the three figures fall off the roof. The figure was too small to be Bob and too tall to be Wade. 

“Oh shit!” Felix cried out when the being landed on the ground in front of them, it’s gray innards splattering. “I-” Felix bent over and threw up.

“Gross, man.” Jack groaned, looking away while Mark struggled not to vomit as well. 

“Mangos and Oranges are not that good coming back up.” Felix groaned. 


	5. Shot Down

Felix sat on the ground, rubbing his upset stomach while the other four men stood next to him, the hotel behind him and the dead being on the opposite side of the building. 

“Now that we’re all back together again, we should probably claim one of these houses to crash for the night and figure how to get home in the morning.” Mark suggested. 

“If that elevator worked, then the rest of the town should have power as well.” Wade said.

“Why would they leave a town and not shut the power off?” Bob asked.

“This place is giving me horror movie vibes.” Jack shuddered. “I don’t think we should stay here tonight.” Callie patted Jack’s shoulder to get his attention.  

“Is...what it’s name again?” Felix asked.

“Callie.” Mark answered.

“Is Callie trying to talk to Jack?” 

“Probably, they’re a lot smarter than we think they are.” Mark watched as Callie gestured with its paws, nodding and chirping. 

“I think Callie’s trying to say we’re safe here.” Jack said, earning a nod. 

“We’re going to trust a rat on this?” Wade scoffed.

“Callie’s from here, they know more about this place than we do.” Jack protested. 

“If we die, I’m blaming Callie.” Wade said. 

“The sky’s starting to get dark, let’s head in and see what we can find.” Bob pointed with a thumb at the houses near them. 

“You good to go, Felix?” Jack asked. 

“Yeah, just a really gross taste in my mouth.” Felix groaned as he stood. “Think we’ll be able to find some water or anything to drink?” 

“Running water wouldn’t be too far out of the question.” Jack shrugged as he handed Felix his bat. 

“I hope we don’t have to use these anymore. I’m not the greatest at sports.” Felix chuckled weakly, walking alongside Jack with the others in front of them. 

“Are you two okay? I never got to ask how you felt about…” Mark looked back at the hotel. “That.” 

“We didn’t really try to push it off, it ran towards Wade and he dove out of the way and down it went.” Bob answered. “Seeing it land, though.” 

“That’s gonna stick in our heads for a while.” Wade added softly. “All of us.” 

“I don’t know if it made it worse or not that it was all gray.” Mark said, swallowing thickly. 

“Maybe some rest will make us all feel better.” Bob said as they reached the front door of a house. Bob twisted the doorknob, found it locked, waited for a second and tried again. “These doors are strange.” He commented as he pushed the door open. 

“Fully furnished and it looks lived in.” Mark said, the men entering the home. 

“Guys…” Wade pointed at a picture hanging on the wall. “That’s Jack.” 

“Maybe the person who lived here was a fan?” Felix said. 

“Then they’d have a poster or something in their room, not a framed photo in their living room.” Mark scratched the top of his head. “Unless they’re a fanatic.” 

“I found Signe.” Bob pointed to the other wall. 

“And my brother.” Jack’s eyes went wide before he took off deeper into the house. Callie leaped off of the man’s shoulder and climbed up to Mark’s “What the fuck!?” The other men followed Jack’s voice and found him standing in the center of a very familiar room. “This is my recording room! This is the exact layout of my room! What in the actual fuck!?” Callie had their paws over their face, scared as the man continued to scream. 

“You’re freaking out Callie, Jack.” Mark said. Jack looked over at Mark and slowly started to calm down.

“I’m sorry little buddy.” Jack went over to Mark and ran a finger along the top of Callie’s head. “We’re not staying here.” He added as Callie leaped over to his shoulder. “I don’t care where we end up, as long as it’s not here.” 

“Let’s hurry and go before it’s too late.” Felix said. “I’m not in the mood to walk around an abandoned town in pitch black darkness.” The man turned and walked away, the others following him out of the house. Bob suddenly shivered and gasped out.

“Did anyone else feel that?” He asked the group. 

“Yeah, it was, like, a weird cold, thing.” Jack rubbed his arms as Callie curled up. 

“A breeze maybe?” Wade said. 

“We would have felt the wind.” Mark said. 

“This house better not suck.” Felix twisted the knob to the house and walked straight into the door. “The fuck!?” 

“Give it a second and try again.” Bob said. 

“This damn place and it’s damn doors.” Felix muttered as he did what Bob suggested and went into the house. “I just want to sleep!” He yelled and plopped himself down on a couch. 

“Anything seem off about this place?” Wade asked, checking the walls after flicking on a light switch. 

“They’re just random people.” Mark answered. “No one knows them, right?” 

“I’ll check the kitchen for food and drinks.” Jack said as he headed off. 

“We should go look for some extra blankets and pillows since Felix doesn’t look like he’s moving and there might not be enough beds for everyone since it’s just a family of five that lived here and one’s a baby.” Bob said to Wade.

“Holy, fuck balls! Yes!” Jack shouted from the kitchen. 

“At least it’s something good this time.” Mark said as he, Bob and Wade went into the kitchen, Felix staying where he was and already starting to doze off. 

“Look at all of this food!” Jack was pulling out boxes of crackers and cereal from the cabinets. “Check the fridge.” He added as he ripped open a box of Cheez-Its. 

“The fridge is cold.” Wade said as he opened it. “And there’s sodas and water bottles.” 

“Fuck the fruit, I want the meat!” Mark grabbed a container that had sliced chicken in it. “Let’s heat this baby up!”

“Are we sure that family’s gone? Who would leave their home fully stocked?” Bob asked. 

“I’m starting to get a feeling that no one actually lives or ever lived here.” Wade said. “Everything looks too clean. If there were really three kids that lived here with just one parent, it’s not likely that the house would be spotless. It doesn’t have to be a mess, but the carpet doesn’t have a single stain, the fridge is well organized and none of the food looks like something you’d feed children under the age of ten and there’s no baby food for the toddler.” 

“You think someone set this town up?” Jack asked through a mouthful of Cheez-Its. 

“With everything we’ve already dealt with, I wouldn’t be shocked.” Bob said. 

“I’m going to go get some blankets and check the beds.” Wade closed the fridge and left the room. 

“I was thinking that tomorrow we’ll go back to the hotel roof and look around some more. Maybe there’s another town or something out there.” Mark said, sitting on top of the kitchen table. 

“There’s gotta be a way back home.” Bob said. “I bet my wife is going insane with worry.” 

“Amy’s probably flipping out, which will make Chica a nervous wreck and Tyler and Ethan are most likely flipping out as well.” Mark rubbed his face. “We need to get back now.” 

“I almost took the picture of Signe off the wall. I have a picture of her in my wallet, but I didn’t want to leave her behind in some random home.” Jack placed the Cheez-Its down.

“If we figure out who did this, I’m gonna punch them in the face.” Mark huffed. 

“I would usually say no to that, but whoever did this went too far.” Jack said. 

“Our first concern is getting home, then we’ll beat up the asshole who brought us here.” Bob stated. 

“Oh my God!” Wade screamed. 

“Could we have ten minutes without someone screaming!” Felix yelled from the living room, some creaking told the men in the kitchen that he was getting up. They all quickly went looking for Wade, seeing the man standing in front of an open bedroom door. 

“Wade, are you okay?” Mark went over to Wade, letting out a loud gasp when he saw what was in the room. 

“What’s wrong?” Bob looked over Mark’s head and stepped away, placing his hands over his mouth. 

“Let me see.” Jack forced his way through Mark and Wade and stiffened, his lips quivering at the site. Callie let out a loud chirp and covered their eyes.

“Oh God…” Felix whimpered. 

“Shit…” Jack went over to the bed where two small children laid. 

Their arms crossed over their chests and eyes shut. They would have looked like they were sleeping if it weren’t for the holes in the center of their foreheads. Jack turned his head and saw a grown woman sitting in a rocking chair, a toddler in her arms with their own eyes closed, arms crossed over their body and the same hole in their forehead. The mother’s eyes were still open, staring blankly at the ceiling with her arm dangling over the side of the chair and a gun was on the ground next to her. The hole in the side of her head told Jack that she had pulled the trigger on herself. All of the bodies were a pale gray, empty, lifeless. 

“Where’s the blood?” Wade asked. “Wouldn’t there be blood everywhere?” 

“I don’t know.” Mark answered in a whisper. 

“I thought seeing that one thing splatter was bad...this is terrible.” Felix shook his head and walked away, running his hands through his hair as he went. 

“I wish we could have done something, anything, to prevent this.” Jack said, voice cracking. 

“They’ve probably been here for a while, there was nothing we could do.” Bob said. “I’m going to check on Felix and try to get the living room set up for us to sleep. I’m sure none of us want to stay in the other room alone.” Bob patted Mark’s shoulder before leaving as well. 

“I’m...I’m gonna go with Bob.” Wade said, walking away after clearing his throat. 

“Jack?” Mark went into the room, going over to the now frozen man. “Jack, you still here?” 

“She was so young. Her children were even younger and they all looked so happy in their photos...what happened?” Jack asked as he stared at the dead woman. 

“We don’t know that story, we don’t even know if she even did this. There’s no blood, they might have been killed somewhere else and set up here for someone to find.” Mark said.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Jack sniffed.

“I don’t know. It’s just a conclusion I made based off of what we’ve seen.” Mark admitted. “We should get out of here, we need to get home ourselves, get to our families and make sure they’re okay.” Mark gently grabbed Jack’s arm and tugged him towards the door. 

“I’m sorry.” Jack said to the woman as he left the room. “I’m so sorry.” Mark closed the door behind him and the two returned to the living room. 

“It’s too dark for us to go anywhere else.” Bob said when Jack and Mark entered the room. 

“It’s not like we can sleep now.” Wade muttered. 

“We need to try, we need our strength.” Mark lead Jack to the couch and sat him down. “I’ll sleep in the chair and you guys and share the couches.” Mark went to the plush chair and sat down. 

“I found a few blankets and pillows in the other bedroom.” Felix said, pointing at the small pile in the center of the room. 

“Thanks.” Mark said after being tossed a pillow and blanket. 

“Night…” Wade and Bob grabbed themselves some blankets and pillow and settles down as Felix did the same, handing Jack some as well.

Jack nodded his thanks before getting more comfortable on the couch. It wasn’t long till everyone else was out and Jack was left alone to his thoughts. Why would she do that? Did she hate being stuck alone in this town that much? Did someone force her to do that? Did someone do that to her and her children? Would that happen to them? Would they end up dead and lost in some town that no one would ever find? Were they trapped in this gray world forever? 

Eventually, Jack’s mind stopped as his eyes grew heavy and he drifted off to a dreamless sleep. 


	6. Shopping

“There’s got to be a store somewhere.” Bob said as the group of men waited in the elevator, heading up to the roof of the hotel again. “We could get some bags and fill them up with food and water.” 

“Good idea, we can do that when we’re done with the roof.” Mark said, leading the group out of the elevator when the doors opened. 

“Day three in this hell.” Jack muttered, the image of the mother and children still fresh in his mind. 

“What exactly should we be looking for?” Wade asked. 

“Just, anything, I guess.” Mark shrugged before the group split up to different parts of the roof. “You doing okay?” Mark asked Jack as they went to one edge of the roof. 

“Do I look like I’m not?” Jack asked back. 

“The thing with the kids and the mom. It shook you up a lot.” Mark commented, kicking a stray pebble off of the roof, watching it land on the ground before grimacing, the body of the creature was on the other side of the building and Mark could still hear the crunch when it landed. 

“We saw someone fall off a roof and splatter like an egg and a murder suicide of three children and a mother, who wouldn’t be shook?” Jack scoffed. “Felix was the one who vomited, not me. Go check on him, I’m fine.” 

“We’ll get home soon, I promise.” Mark patted Jack’s shoulder.

“And if we don’t?” Jack asked without looking at the other man.

“Then I’ll punch every living thing in the dick until we do.” Mark got a chuckle out of Jack. 

“Not my dick.” Jack wagged a finger at Mark. 

“I don’t want to get anywhere near that thing.” Mark held his hands up, getting a smirk on his face before leaning and whispering. “That’s Signe’s job.” 

“Ya little bitch!” Jack started slapping Mark’s arm, chasing him when he took off. “Come here, you!” Jack hopped on Mark’s back and started messing up the other man’s hair. 

“Not the hair!” Mark fake cried.

“I’m floofing it for power!” Jack laughed.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Wade asked. 

“Jack’s obviously trying to get some power via Mark’s floof.” Bob stated. 

“Guys! I found something!” Felix called from the top of the structure that held the top floor. 

“We’re coming.” Mark called back as Jack got off of him. The men went over to the structure and climbed the ladder to the top of it and joined Felix where he stood.

“What did you find?” Bob asked. 

“There’s a weird portal thing over to the left, do you see it?” Felix pointed in the direction he spoke of. 

“Kind of reminds me of the bottom of the sinkhole we were dragged into.” Wade said. “But a little more swirly.” 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jack said, looking at Mark. 

“Hell yeah, I am.” Mark clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “We just found our way home.” 

“Did you hear that, buddy? We’re going home.” Jack scratched under Callie’s chin, the creature chirping happily. 

“The distance of it is nearly double than what it was to get to the town when we first landed. It’ll probably take a good four or five days to get to it.” Bob stated. 

“Then we’ll stock up at the store you mentioned. Like you said, there has to be something like that here if this is a town with its own hotel.” Mark said. 

“Let’s go then!” Felix skipped back and ran over to the ladder. 

_ x~x~x _

“This looks like an off-brand Wal-Mart.” Wade commented as they entered the store.

“It’s too small to be a Wal-Mart. More like Target or Sears.” Bob said.

“Who cares? As long as they got food and water.” Felix shrugged.

“Backpacks would be great as well.” Mark added. “Carrying around all the fruit in only our arms kind of sucked.” 

“This place has a map? Sweet?” Jack said as he went up to a display. 

“School supplies, there’s gonna be backpacks there.” Mark pointed at the area. 

“We can hit that first and then split up from there.” Bob said. “Someone should be in charge of getting miscellaneous things while the rest get food and water.” 

“I’ll do that.” Jack offered. “I went camping a lot as a kid, I know what we need.” 

“Game plan set.” Mark chuckled and started heading off. Wade, Bob, and Felix followed while Jack lingered for a second, staring at an area of the store he planned on going but wasn’t sure if it was needed or the best idea.

“You coming?” Wade called.

“Yeah, I was just making sure I knew where everything was at.” Jack called back, staring for one more seconds before catching up with his friends. 

“There’s plenty of fruit out there for us, we should get things high in carbs and protein.” Mark said. “I wonder if we could find a cooler on wheels and put some ice and meat in there so it won’t go bad.” 

“We could get jerky and nuts. Those are high in protein.” Bob suggested. 

“Plus it’d be a lot easier to carry those things than lug a cooler around.” Wade added. 

“We could try to find a small thing of luggage on wheels to put all of the water bottles in.” Felix said.

“How is that any different than the cooler? At least our drinks would be cold in the cooler.” Mark huffed.

“The luggage would be a lot smaller than the cooler and easier to move about in the forest.” Felix countered. 

“Jack, what do you think? Jack?” Mark saw that Jack was looking at the ground, lost in thought. “Yo, you still with us?” 

“Huh? Yeah. I was just thinking about what we needed.” Jack answered with a weak smile. 

“You sure?” 

“Yep. Just figure out the food stuff and I’ll worry about the camping.” 

“Great, nothing but pure gray bags.” Wade mumbled when he saw the backpacks. “Does no one have any creativity anymore?” 

“It’s better than nothing.” Bob said as he pulled a bag off of the wall, blinking and shaking his head when another bag took its place. 

“Dude, the fuck?” Felix grabbed the new bag and removed it, another bag taking that one’s place. 

“This place gets weirder and weirder by the second.” Wade took the newest bag and no was shocked when there was yet another bag taking the spot. 

“Look at what’s on Jack’s shoulder, is a replenishing backpack stand really that shocking?” Mark said and grabbed a backpack for himself. 

“If everything here does that, we’ll never starve if that portal turns out to be a dud.” Felix said as Jack took a backpack as well.

“Dude, don’t jinx it.” Wade shushed Felix. 

“You good going on your own, Jack?” Bob asked. 

“Yep, I’ll meet you guys up front when we’re done.” Jack gave the taller man a thumbs-up before walking away. 

Jack hummed lightly to himself as he headed straight to the camping section of the store after grabbing a pack of computer paper. He scanned the aisles, ignoring fancy products that were more flare than use. He stopped when he saw pre-rolled sleeping bags and went back to the front of the store, got carts, and returned to the area, dropping four sleeping bags into the cart and some rope. They would use the rope to tie the sleeping bags to their backpacks and use the rope for anything else if needed. 

Jack was now whistling with Callie sitting in the baby holder of the cart. Jack grabbed a thing of gasoline and placed it in his cart, planning on putting everything in the empty backpack when he was done. Jack stopped and tapped his chin while looking at the tents? Would it be worth the effort to carry one of these? The weather didn’t get cold at night, plus they had the sleeping bags and if it were to rain there was plenty of trees to go under and stay dry.

“What do you think, Callie?” Jack asked the creature, getting a head shake in response. “Same.” Jack continued rolling on, adding a few shirts to the cart and an axe. “We’ll put Mark’s rock-climbing to use and he can cut some wood.” Jack chuckled, earning a chip from Callie. “Let’s see what else we’ll need. Mark’s got a lighter, but I’m grabbing an extra one just in case.” Jack spoke to Callie as he tossed the long-nosed lighter into the cart. “Are there any ponds or lakes on the way to the portal?” He asked Callie. The creature rocked their head back and forth for a moment before nodding. “How many?” Callie held up one finger. “Sweet, I’ll get a few compact fishing poles so we can fish and have a break from the jerky they’re probably gonna get.” Jack turned the cart. “Should I get worms?” Callie shrugged. “They should be pre-packed somewhere around here.” Jack stopped when he saw the area of the store he was debating on going to. Jack let out a deep breath. “I’ll be right back.” He said to Callie. Jack took his backpack and went over to the area. Jack grabbed one of the small items and placed it in his bag, along with what was needed for it to work. He held the bag closed and returned to the cart, shoving the axe, shirts and lighter in the bag before placing it back in the cart. “Let’s go get those poles and worms.” He said as he turned the cart, ignoring the questioning look on Callie’s face. 

Jack found the items and placed them in his bag. He looked around one more time before heading off to the front of the store, passing the area again as he went. Jack swallowed thickly as he stared at his bag, knowing what was at the bottom of it and praying that he wouldn’t need to use it. 

“What’s in the cart?” Felix asked when Jack reached him and the others. 

“I found some sleeping bags. I figured we could tie them to our bags and have something a little more comfy to sleep on than grass.” Jack said as he passed out the bags. “Looks like you decided to go with the luggage idea?” 

“There’s a shit ton of water in there.” Wade said. “Should easily last us a month if needed.”

“And it won’t be.” Mark corrected. “We also have plenty of food. No fresh meat, but jerky will do.” 

“Callie says there’s a pond on the way to the portal. We could fish there.” Jack stated as he helped Felix tie his sleeping bag. 

“We should be able to get a few hours into the trip if we head off now. The sky goes completely black at ten o’clock and goes back to light at seven a.m.” Bob stated, playing with his watch. 

“You figured out when the night-cycle thing is?” Mark asked. 

“After the blackout the first night, I figured it’d be nice to know when it was going to happen again.” Bob answered. “But this is only based on one night’s worth of data, I may be wrong.” 

“Then we’ll set up camp at eight tonight. It’ll give us plenty of time to get ready and to time the blackout again.” Jack said, finishing up his own bag before slinging it on. “I also got an axe for us to chop up wood and some gasoline so we can have proper fires.” 

“I grabbed some booze so we can party tonight.” Felix held up a bottle of wine. 

“He’s trying to kill me.” Mark joked. 

“I figured we could have a glass of wine every night that we survive. Something to keep us going.” Felix protested.

“He just liked the image of the pug on it.” Wade stated.

“That’s only the half-truth.” Felix chuckled. “Marzia will love this bottle as well.” He added with a small smile before it faded away. “I miss her.” 

“We’ll get back to her and everyone else. We’ll have one hell of a story to tell them.” Bob said. 

“Mandy’ll get a kick about hearing you smacking a bitch with a bat.” Wade chuckled. 

“Signe and Amy will love the story about the rhino you two almost got ran over by.” Felix said to Mark and Jack. 

“Marzia will definitely believe that you barfed after seeing that thing splatter like a raw egg.” Jack nudged Felix’s side with an elbow. 

“Molly’s gonna freak when we tell her about you swan diving and making that thing fall.” Mark said to Wade. 

“We’re going to have a lot more than that to tell them by the time we get back.” Wade said. 

“As long as we just head straight to the portal, everything will be fine.” Jack smiled widely. He felt his stomach sink a little when he could have sworn that he heard. 

_ “Don’t Leave.” _


	7. Rhino

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post this chapter early today since I was unable to post yesterday.

“The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah.” 

“Jack...please.” Mark groaned. 

“We’ve been walking for so long, I’m tired.” Jack whined.

“We can stop for lunch.” Bob suggested.

“Please! I’m starving!” Felix exclaimed. 

“How are you starving? You’ve been munching on the trail mix ever since we left the store.” Wade said. 

“It’s called an exaggeration, man. I really just wanna sit down for a while.” Felix admitted. 

“Sounds like it’s a great time for lunch.” Mark said, plopping down under a tree. 

“I’m going to literally be half the man I was by the time we get back.” Bob grunted as he and the others joined Mark. “I wanted to lose weight, but not like this.” 

“Exercise is good for ya, but this just sucks.” Jack slipped his bag off and had it next to him. 

“There is such thing as too much exercise.” Wade stated. “Although some days just getting out of bed feels like too much exercise.” He added with a small laugh. 

“We’ll save cooking the noodles during the night.” Mark muttered as he went through his bag. “Does anyone want dry cereal?” 

“Me.” Jack raised his hand and easily caught it when the small box was tossed to him. “Could someone hand me a water?” He asked as he opened the box. 

“Got’cha.” Bob answered, opening the suitcase. The man threw the bottle to Jack and then threw some to everyone in the group. 

“Turkey jerky is weird.” Wade commented as he chewed. 

“Weird in a good way or weird in a bad way?” Felix asked, taking a bite out of a granola bar. 

“Yes?” Wade yanked off another bite. 

“This feels like we’re just on a camping trip.” Bob said as he chewed on some gummies. “If only that was true.” 

“We’ll be home in a few days, we can do this.” Mark said through a mouthful of chips. 

“All we have to do is make it to that portal...it sounds too easy and good to be true.” Wade sighed. 

“Sometimes things are easier than what we expect.” Jack said. “I mean, Mark got a girlfriend, we all thought that would be impossible.” 

“I will cut you in your sleep.” Mark threatened with a laugh in his voice. 

“True friendship, threatening to mutilate each other during the night.” Bob said. 

“Fight me, scrublord.” Jack patted his chest and puffed it out towards the other man. 

“My money’s on Mark.” Felix said, waving his wallet in the air. 

“Same.” Wade added.

“Is no one on my side?” Jack huffed. 

“You eat cake, Mark climbs rocks.” Bob explained.

“Mark eats cake too!” Jack protested. “And when was the last time Mark went rock climbing? Plus one blow to his ego and down he does.” 

“Fuck you too.” Mark flipped Jack the bird. 

“You two enjoy yourselves, I’m napping.” Felix said as he adjusted his bag to the sleeping bag was facing him so he could use it as a pillow. 

“But we still have so much land to cover before night or we’ll never get home.” Bob said.

“Let me nap for twenty minutes and then we can kill ourselves walking another five hours straight.” Felix said, eyes already closed. 

“A nap does sound great.” Wade nodded his head, plopping back. 

“We can’t push ourselves too hard or we’ll die getting there like Felix said.” Mark got comfortable as well. 

“You’re really pulling my leg here.” Bob chuckled and let out a small yawn. “Yeah. A nap does sound great.” He agreed as he laid down. Jack simply shrugged and leaned against the tree behind him, feeling Callie get on his stomach to nap as well. 

_ “Why are you trying to leave?” _

Jack woke with a start. Who was talking? Why did that voice keep following him? Was he going insane or was it just another thing they had to deal with because of where they were? Did the others hear it? By the fact that none of the others even moved, Jack was going to go with ‘no’.

“ _ Don’t leave.” _

“It’s only in your head.” Jack said to himself as he opened his backpack. He moved the other stuff in the bag aside and he stared at what he got at the store he’s still yet to tell the others about. Jack reached his hands in and made sure that the item was how it should be at the moment. 

“You looking for something, Jack?” Mark’s voice made Jack yelp and quickly hold the bag shut. 

“Uh, yeah, yeah, I mean, no. I...I was just making sure that everything was fine after sleeping on the bag.” Jack chuckled nervously. 

“You spilled some of the gasoline, did you? You laugh gives you away.” Mark said.

“Yep, yep. That’s it. I just got a little gasoline on the inside of my bag, nothing serious.” Jack didn’t like lying to his friend, but he wasn’t ready to tell him about what he had taken from the store. He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he would get from the others. They might call him crazy for it. 

“We should get the others up. We can get another couple miles in before we set up camp for the night.” Mark let out a groan as he stretched. 

“Let me close this up real quick and I’ll help ya.” Jack said and zipped his backpack close before getting up with Mark. 

“Alright, you lazy sacks of bones, get up!” Mark yelled and nudged Felix’s side with his foot. 

“Five more minutes, mom.” Felix muttered. 

“Was yelling necessary?” Wade grumbled as he sat up and rubbed his eyes with balled-up hands. 

“It worked on you.” Jack chuckled while shaking Bob up. 

“You’re making me jiggle.” Bob groaned and rolled away from Jack. “I’m up, just takes a big guy a bit to move.” 

“Fucking get up, Felix.” Mark was dragging Felix by his feet. 

“Just carry me there.” Felix said. 

“Hell no, I’m already lugging that suitcase with me. I’m not lugging your ass around as well.” Mark huffed.

“You’re no fun.” Felix blew a raspberry towards Mark, finally getting up along with Bob and Wade. 

“I already miss sleeping on the couch.” Wade sighed. 

“You’ll be in your own…” Mark stopped his comment when a familiar rattling filled the air. 

“If that son-of-a-bitch is back, I will lose it.” Jack turned his head and saw the birds flying away like before. “Shit!” 

“Run!” Mark yelled at the others and took off. 

“Climb a tree!” Jack yelled over the sound of screeching birds and rodents. 

“What’s coming-oh, my God!” Wade cried out when the rhino-like creature charged out from the trees. 

“What the fuck is that!?” Bob screamed. 

“Just get up a tree!” Jack soon leaped up and grabbed a branch. “I’ll help you guys up!” He added as he hoisted himself up. He quickly stuck a hand down and caught Mark, struggling a little to help him up. He and Jack both started pulling Bob up and saw that Wade was getting up on his own. 

“Help!” Felix frantically looked around for a lower branch, but couldn’t find one. 

“Jump!” Jack shouted, knowing that by the time Bob was up and safe, there wouldn’t be time to help Felix. 

“Fuck my ass!” Felix looked back, seeing that the Rhino was very close. “Fuck it more!” Felix jumped up and caught the branch by the tips of his fingers, not estimating his jump correctly. 

“Tuck your ass in!” Wade yelled as he crawled over to Felix. Felix lifted his legs up, barely missing the rhino’s horns, but his fingers slipping off not long after and the man landed on the rhino’s back. 

“Felix!” The men called after him and they all climbed back out of the tree as fast as they could. 

“Go ahead of me, I’ll catch up.” Bob said to Mark and Jack, knowing that they were faster than him. 

“I’ll stay with Bob, go!” Wade said. Mark and Jack didn’t wait before taking off. 

Callie leaped off of Jack’s shoulder and went ahead of the men. Jack stepped on top of a dead log and used it to launch himself further with Mark right behind him. They followed the sound and feel of the rhino. 

“I don’t know if it’ll be better for Felix to just fall off of the thing.” Mark said, slapping a thin branch out of the way. 

“If he falls behind it, he’ll be fine.” Jack covered his face as he went through a wall of leaves. 

“Oh...fuck…” Mark gasped for air when they stopped, finding themselves in an open field. 

“What is this place, man?” Jack added. 

“There’s the rhino and Felix is still on it.” Mark pointed down the field. 

“Are those its babies?” Jack asked, seeing smaller versions of the rhino. 

“Great. We’re dealing with a raging mama.” Mark sighed. “We’re never gonna get Felix back. 

“Shit, Felix is trying to climb off of it.” Jack commented. “What do we do?” 

“I honestly have-fuck!” Mark cursed when Felix was bucked off of the rhino.

“When could rhinos buck!” Jack yelled as he started running towards the fallen man. 

“Are we seriously questioning this place? I thought we were giving up on that?” Mark said, following Jack. 

“Felix! Are you okay!?” Jack stumbled to his knees next to Felix. 

“I think all of the air was forced out of my lungs.” Felix wheezed. 

“I felt that two days ago when I fell from a tree.” Jack said as he checked for cuts. 

“Is he okay?” Mark asked. 

“Yeah, the wind got knocked out of him is all. He might be a little sore, though.” Jack answered. 

“The rhino does not look happy to see us.” Mark said as the rhino glared at them, loud huffs of air coming from their nose. 

“Hey, fuck-face!” Wade called from the other side of the field. 

“What is he doing?” Jack asked.

“Come and get me, fucker!” Wade waved his hands and started making crude gestures. The rhino’s attention was now on the other man. 

“Wade! Leave!” Mark yelled.

“You want a piece of me you shit! I bet your mother was a rock!” Wade’s face was bright red in fear. 

“Just go!” Felix tried to yell, but it came out as a hoarse croak. The rhino blew out more air before charging towards Wade. 

“Wade!” The men could only watch as the rhino went towards Wade and they all held their breath as it ran. Wade made one more gesture at the rhino before diving out of the way, making the rhino run back into the forest and into a tree. The tree tilted over along with the rhino. 

“Is Felix okay?” Bob asked as he joined the others, carrying all of the bags and suitcase. 

“He’s fine, is Wade?” Jack asked, seeing that the man was still on the ground. 

“Thank God!” Mark exclaimed when Wade got up and started jogging towards them. 

“What the fuck were you thinking!?” Jack scolded Wade when he reached them. 

“I just saved your asses is what I was thinking.” Wade said, breathing heavily. 

“I bet you pissed yourself.” Felix said, still laying on the ground. 

“I almost did, I’ll admit.” Wade said. “I guess I have a better story to tell Molly now when we get back.”

“She’s gonna kick your ass for being so stupid.” Jack said. 

“As long as I’m with her, I don’t care.” Wade swallowed as his breathing finally started getting regular. 

“You’re not allowed scaring up like that again, understood.” Mark placed a hand on Wade’s shoulder. 

“Yes, mom.” Wade chuckled. 

“We should get out of here before mama wakes up.” Bob said, watching the two smaller rhinos went over to the large one. 

“There’s no way the tree killed her, right?” Jack asked. “I’d feel bad if we left the rhinos mama-less.” 

“With how fucking strong she probably is, I give her like ten minutes till she’s up and charging again.” Wade said. 

“At least the rhino took us the correct way.” Bob started handing everyone their bags. “We should walk for at least another hour before setting camp to make sure we’re far enough away. I don’t think we’re going to make it the full day after the rhino thing.” 

“Will you carry me this time?” Felix asked Mark. 

“Hold my bag.” Mark gave Jack his bag before getting Felix on his back. “I’m only doing this for thirty minutes.” He stated. 

“I wonder if I could get some floof power.” Felix laughed as he started playing with Mark’s hair, a yelp coming out a second later after Mark dropped him. 

“Nope.” Mark continued walking. “You’ve lost your riding privileges.” 


	8. Fishin

Callie slowly stalked through the tall grass, their paws barely touching the ground as they moved. Callie stopped and their ears twitched when they heard something squeak. They waited a moment and faced the sound when there was another squeak. Callie headed towards the squeaking, their mouth opening and exposing their sharp teeth. Their head peeked through the blades of grass and they saw a small mouse-like creature digging through the dirt, most likely looking for seeds or worms. Callie took several more steps towards the mouse and froze when there was a light snap. They snarled when they realized they had stepped on a very thin twig. The mouse stiffened before starting to take off. Callie chirped loudly and went after the mouse. It didn’t take long for Callie to catch up to the mouse and with a leap and a bite of its neck, the mouse was dead under Callie’s paws. Callie quickly devoured the mouse, each bite larger than the next. They licked off the blood from their lips and used their paws to help clean themselves, making sure that they were spotless before burying the bones and heading back to the pond where Jack and Mark were fishing, their craving satisfied.  

“Bob’s guessing we’ve got another half day or so left of walking after tonight.” Jack said as he watched his bobber. “There you are Callie, where did you run off to?” Callie chirped at Jack as they settled down next to him.

“They might have just gone to the restroom.” Mark said, seeing Callie curl up into a ball. “And now they’re napping.” He added with a chuckle. “Adorable.” 

“We probably still won’t catch anything by the time they get up.” Jack mumbled. “Not a single bite.” 

“We could try a different spot in the pond.” Mark suggested. 

“This is our fifth spot.” Jack whined. “I just want fish!” 

“Your yelling is going to scare all the fish away.” Mark ripped some grass out of the ground and tossed it at Jack. 

“You got some on Callie.” Jack said as he removed the blades of grass off of Callie’s sleeping body. 

“A little bit of grass isn’t gonna kill them.” Mark sighed. 

“You care for your pet how you want to and I’ll care for mine.” Jack stated, scratching between Callie’s ears. 

“Are you really planning on bringing Callie back to California?” Mark asked.

“Why wouldn’t I? Callie’s been helpful this whole time and they’re too cute to leave behind.” Jack said. 

“Callie’s not from where we are, what if they’re not able to survive? And God forbid someone else sees them and calls the cops or animal control or something. A pure gray rat-thing with one eye is not normal.” 

“I don’t give a shit if they’re considered ‘normal’ or not. If someone tries to take Callie away they’re going to have a hard time taking them from my cold, dead, hands.” Jack huffed. 

“I’m just telling you to be realistic here, Jack. Callie is a forest animal, they live outdoors and you live in the city, they might not be happy there.” Jack didn’t say anything and stared at the water. “You do whatever you want, man, I just don’t want Callie to be miserable because I know you, if they’re miserable, you’ll be miserable.” 

“I’ll figure it out when we get to the portal.” Jack stated. “I think Chica and Callie would make good friends.” 

“Callie would scare the shit out of Chica, she gets spooked by her own shadow.” Mark chuckled. 

“Maybe Amy will-” Jack stopped when his bobber went under and something started tugging harshly at his fishing line. “Oh, fuck!” Jack quickly started reeling in whatever was on his line. “Help!” 

“Shit, man!” Mark dropped his fishing pole and rushed over to Jack. Mark grabbed Jack’s fishing rod and started pulling back with the other man. Both of them thankful that Jack grabbed the extra strong fishing line or it would have snapped by this point. 

“We’re gonna eat like kings tonight!” Jack shouted as they started stepping backward, getting the line closer and closer to the edge of the pond. 

“Hold the pole up!” Mark shouted as he struggled to do the same. Calle was chirping and bouncing around, cheering the two men on. 

“Almost there!” Jack jerked on the fishing pole one more time before he and Mark fell over, the catch flying into the air and landing on top of them. 

“Gross!” Mark shoved the fish off of him. 

“Don’t let it go back into the water!” Jack jumped on the fish and held it down. 

“Is that a salmon? Salmon don’t live in ponds that doesn’t...nevermind.” Mark sighed and went to the front of the fish. “So, what do we do? Do we just wait for the thing to suffocate to death? That’s kind of cruel.” 

“Do you still have your pocket knife on ya?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, why...oh.” Mark grimaced a little before taking out his knife, flicking it open. “Sorry fella, but we gotta eat.” Mark turned the knife over and stabbed the fish through the center of its head. “Did it work?” Mark slowly removed the blade, the fish no longer moving. 

“Looks like we caught dinner.” Jack chuckled. “Do you wanna carry the fish or the stuff?” 

“You can hold the pile of dead scales, I’ll get the bags and poles.” Mark stated as he got up and started collecting everything. 

“Bellies filled with fish sounds like a great way to go to bed tonight.” Jack said happily, lifting the dead fish up. Callie scurried up Jack’s side and sat on his shoulder, something Jack had gotten used to very quickly since it was Callie’s go to the past five days.  

“And this is the last night in this hell. I am so ready to get back home.” Mark sang, walking alongside Jack back to the area they claimed for the night. 

“Next time, I go fishing, my arms hurt.” Felix huffed as Mark and Jack reached the camp. “Chopping woods sucks.” 

“I’ve been doing it every night, you can deal with it.” Mark stated. 

“Check out what I caught!” Jack hoisted the fish above his head, quickly lowering it before he toppled over. 

“Fuck yeah!” Wade exclaimed. “Fish for dinner!” 

“Do any of us actually know how to clean a fish?” Bob asked.

“Nope, but I’m gonna try anyway.” Felix took out a knife. “Let’s get cutting.” 

“You’re a little overexcited about this.” Jack commented as he laid the fish down in front of Felix. 

“We haven’t had proper meat for almost a week. This fish is like a God send.” Felix said and started slicing at the fish. 

“Are we going to trust Felix with this?” Mark asked. 

“He’s willing to do it, let him.” Bob said. “Although I’m shocked that’s not grossing him out, he’s the only one to puke so far.” 

“Seeing a thing in the shape of a man fall from a building and splatter like a lazily done art project could make anyone puke.” Felix protested. “But I’m used to fish guts, I am Swedish after all.” 

“I can heat up some of the cans of beans and corn.” Bob offered, already up and heading towards the food. 

“It’s our last night, let’s splurge.” Wade chuckled. 

“I’ll go get-that hell, man!” Bob shouted when he saw a pig-like creature digging into his bag. “You little shit!” Bob grabbed the pig and tried to pull it away from the bag. The pig squealed and started lashing out. “Fuck!” Bob cursed when the pig slashed him across the face with its oversized claws. 

“Bob!” The other men rushed over to their friend, the pig crying out and running away when Callie hissed at it. 

“That does not look good.” Wade said, seeing the blood coming out of Bob’s cheek. 

“It doesn’t feel good either!” Bob snapped. 

“Felix, go get the medkit from Jack’s bag!” Mark ordered. 

“I got it!” Jack shouted as Felix started getting up. 

“Felix can get it, help us calm Bob down.” Mark said. 

“This fucking sucks!” Bob yelled. 

“I’ll be right back.” Jack scrambled away from the other men and saw that Felix was about to open his bag. “Let me get that.” 

“I can open a bag on my own.” Felix huffed.

“Please, man. Just let me get the medkit from my bag.” Jack pleaded.

“You have something in here that you don’t want us to know about?” Felix raised a brow. 

“If I say yes, will you give it to me?” Jack held a hand out.

“Is it gross?” 

“Just give me the damn bag!” 

“It is gross, you sicko.” Felix teased and gave Jack his bag. “Don’t do anything too weird while we’re all still here. I’m sure you can wait another night before playing around.” 

“Would you two hurry the fuck up!?” Wade shouted. “Bob’s bleeding out here!” 

“Sorry! Coming!” Jack quickly unzipped the bag, pulled out the medkit and gave it to Felix. 

“I got it, guys!” Felix gave Jack a wink before heading back over to the other three men. Jack waited a moment before peeking into his bag, the item still undiscovered and still unneeded and if everything went well until tomorrow night, he’d chuck it into the forest and forget all about it. 

“That stings!” Bob cried when Mark used the hydrogen peroxide to clean out his wound. 

“We don’t know what was on that pig’s foot, I have to make sure this doesn’t get infected.” Mark said. 

“How bad is it?” Jack asked, returning to his friends with backpack closed and on his own back. 

“Three gashes across the cheek. It doesn’t look like it’ll need stitches, but it’ll take a while to heal.” Wade answered. “Thankfully he’ll only have to deal with it for a day before we get back and can take him to a real doctor.” 

“Think it’ll become a badass scar?” Felix asked. 

“Are you almost done with that shit yet!?” Bob whined. “It hurts like hell!” 

“Usually Bob’s the calm one, this is new.” Jack said. 

“As soon as we get him cleaned and wrapped up, he’ll return to normal.” Mark started applying bandages to Bob’s face. “I honestly have no idea if I’m doing this right.” 

“As long as the wound’s covered and he can still see, we’re good.” Felix waved a hand in front of Bob’s face. 

“I will bite your finger.” Bob warned. 

“Go back to getting the fish ready, some food will make all of us feel better.” Mark said to Felix. 

“Do we have any of the wine left?” Jack asked as he went back to the campfire with Felix. 

“I just finished it off, sorry bro.” Felix admitted. 

“Do you still have the bottle?” 

“Yep. Wasn’t gonna litter.” Felix pointed to the empty bottle. 

“I have an idea.” Jack smirked and grabbed the bottle. 

“You’re not gonna piss in it, are you?”

“Dude, the fuck?” 

“What else are you going to with an empty bottle in the middle of the forest?” 

“Just wait and see.” 

Jack pulled out the container of gasoline, and one of the shirts. He also grabbed the axe and used it to cut off a piece of the shirt. Jack soaked the shirt in gasoline before using almost the rest of it to fill up the bottle. The piece of shirt was put into the bottle with some of it sticking out of the opening. Jack held up the bottle and sang. 

“Ta-da!” 

“Did you seriously just make a molotov cocktail?” Felix said, slightly impressed. 

“I know we only have a day left, but this is just in case the rhino, or something else, tries to give us trouble again.” Jack wiggled the bottle. 

“Sorry about all the yelling.” Bob said as he, Mark and Wade returned to the campfire as well. 

“I would have been much worse in that situation.” Wade said, holding several cans of beans and corn.

“Felix would have just cried.” Mark teased.

“Fuck you too, mate.” Felix flipped Mark off. 

“How’s the fish cutting going?” Bob asked. 

“It’s poorly done, but I have fillets we can start cooking while I work on the rest of the fish.” Felix answered. 

“Is that a fucking molotov cocktail?” Mark asked when he saw the bottle in Jack’s hands. 

“Yep. Pretty cool, right?” Jack chuckled. 

“As long as we don’t need to use it, he can carry that thing as much as he wants.” Wade started peeling off the tops of the cans. 

“There’s nothing wrong with being prepared.” Jack stated, setting the bottle down, his bag suddenly feeling heavier as he thought about what was in the bottom of it. There was definitely nothing wrong with being prepared. Jack was about to get lost in thought when the same voice as before spoke again. 

_ “Are you really going to leave?”  _

Jack blinked several times and shook his head. He was ready to be home and to get away from all of this. 


	9. Portal

Jack hobbled over several large branches, checking behind him to make sure that he couldn’t see the others. After being satisfied that he was far enough away, he unzipped his pants and started to relieve himself. 

He was very grateful that Callie understood what they could say so when he told them to stay with Mark, they did. It was weird enough having your pets watch you use the restroom, but it was weirder when said pet only had one eye and a spike on its head. Jack finished and was zipping his pants back up when he heard something crunching. 

“Hello?” He called out, getting a sour pit in his stomach when he didn’t get a response. “Mark? Bob? Wade? Felix?” Jack started removing his backpack and he listed off his friend’s names, still no response and the crunching getting louder. “Who’s there!?” Jack snapped, beginning to open his bag, seeing a shadowy figure move further into the forest. “Show yourself!” Jack felt his fingers touch the item in the bottom of his bag, heart racing at the thought of using it like this. 

“Jack!? Jack, you okay!?” Mark’s voice cut Jack’s thoughts off and the crunching stopped. “Jack!?”

“I’m fine! A creature spooked me is all.” Jack called back, releasing the item and closing his bag back up, chest still hurting from the rush. He peeked over his shoulder one more time as he headed back to the others, sighing loudly and pushing the branches out of the way so he could see his friends. 

“I’m figuring we’ll need to stop one more time halfway there or so for a quick rest and lunch.” Bob stated.

“Can’t we just go and not stop? I am dying to get back home.” Felix said. 

“The sun’s burning brighter than usual today, we don’t want to risk getting heat stroke.” Wade said, pointing up. 

“As much as I just want to run the rest of the way, I gotta agree with Wade and Bob. One more stop would be best. How much water do we have left?” Mark asked. 

“Enough for everyone to have two bottles.” Jack answered, seeing the open suitcase next to him. Callie went over to him and peeked their head into the suitcase as well. 

“That should easily get us through the rest of the day. We can each take out two bottles and put them in our bags and leave the suitcase behind.” Wade said. “As much as I’d hate to leave something like that in the middle of the forest, I don’t think we should waste what little energy we have left carrying that thing around if it’s basically empty.” 

“An animal could use it as a shelter or something.” Bob added. 

“What do you think?” Jack looked at Callie and the creature chirped and nodded their head. “Callie says it’s cool.” Jack took out two water bottles and placed them in his bag. 

“We have nature’s blessing.” Mark said heading over to the suitcase and getting his water bottles. “Plus our bags are a lot lighter since we’ve been eating the food and adding two water bottles won’t make much of a difference.” Mark grabbed four more bottles to give to Wade and Bob while Jack took the remaining four to Felix. 

“We have plenty of food for one more meal and some snacking while walking.” Bob said after looking into everyone’s bags but Jack’s. 

“Does anyone mind if I eat the rest of the turkey jerky?” Felix asked, pulling out the almost empty bag. 

“Help yourself. There’s still a full bag of beef jerky I have my eyes on.” Mark chuckled. 

“Is everything all packed up?” Jack asked, getting several head nods and ‘yeps'. “The fire put out?” 

“Stomped it out myself.” Wade said smugly, laughing a moment later. 

“The last fire we have to worry about here.” Bob said with a small smile. 

“Should we take the sleeping bags as well?” Felix asked. “We’re not sleeping here anymore and it’ll be less to carry.” 

“It’ll be nice to sit on them when we stop later today and then leave them there. The stuffing could be used for a bird’s nest.” Mark said. 

“I just want to run, I’m so excited to get back.” Jack said, bouncing a little as the group started walking. 

“The first thing I’m doing the moment we get back, besides kissing my wife, is shitting in my own toilet.” Bob chuckled. 

“I’m taking a shower first.” Wade said. “My entire body feels like it’s caked with ten pounds of dirt and Molly would not want that near her.” 

“Amy and Chica are going to deal with my dirty ass cause I’m hugging both of them and giving Chica the best belly rub of her life.” Mark rubbed his hands together. “Plus shitting in my own toilet sounds great as well.” 

“Signe is going to get hugged so hard we’ll end up looking like I tackled her.” Jack laughed. “I’m just gonna hug her and never let go.” 

“I bet Maria is going to be scolding me for being gone for so long and I will sit there and listen to every single word she says, I don’t care if she’s yelling at me, as long as I get to hear her sweet voice and hold her.” Everyone stopped and looked at Felix. “What? I love her.” 

“That was cute as shit.” Jack said.

“Marzia is a lucky lady.” Mark patted Felix’s back. 

“Stop, you’re making this weird.” Felix stepped away from Mark. 

“You’re such a great man to her.” Bob wrapped his arm around Felix’s shoulder. 

“You’re making me regret sharing things with you guys.” Felix ducked and went ahead of the group.

“We tease cause we care!” Wade called. 

“Assholes!” Felix called back. 

“Come on, man! You know we love you!” Mark held his arms out. 

“Suck my ass!” 

“Not that kind of love.” Jack chuckled. Felix finally stopped and waited for the others to catch up to him. 

“You guys make my life difficult.” Felix huffed.

“That’s what friends are for.” Bob said.

“Plus, you just spoke what all of us were thinking.” Wade added. 

“We just had to poke fun at ya.” Jack nudged Felix’s side. 

“All of you are still assholes.” Felix muttered.

“And you wouldn’t want us any other way.” Mark said. 

“So, Jack, when are you going to tell me what’s in your bag?” Felix’s question made Jack stiffen a little. 

“Huh? I just have the camping stuff.” Jack’s smile twitched a little. 

“Are we missing something?” Wade asked. 

“Is Jack hiding something from us?” Bob added with a raised brow.

“It’s nothing. I’m not hiding anything.” Jack chuckled weakly. 

“The more you speak, the less I believe you.” Mark said. 

“It’s something weird, from what I was told.” Felix started poking at Jack’s bag, Jack’s reaction of jerking the bag away from the man made the others more suspicious. 

“What did you grab at the store?” Mark asked. 

“Just the camping stuff, I already showed all of you it.” Jack said. 

“Then can we look in your bag?” Bob reached towards Jack. 

“It’ll just be a waste of time to make me take off my bag, open it, show you what’s in it, close it back up and put it back on.” Jack had turned around and was now walking backward.

“It must be really weird if he doesn’t even want us to touch the bag.” Wade commented. 

“What could be so bad that you don’t want us to know what it is?” Felix asked. 

“Like you said, it’s something really weird, like, fucked up weird.” Jack held his hands out in front of him. 

“Now I have to see it.” Mark said. 

“Trust me, you don’t.” Jack wrapped his arms around the backpack, holding it against his back. 

“Dude, is it seriously that bad?” Wade asked.

“Yeah, it’s that bad.” Jack stopped when the others did. 

“You’re acting weird.” Bob said. 

“If you had what I do, you’d act the same.” Jack muttered. 

“Do you not trust us?” Felix asked.

“I do, I do, it’s just...how about this.” Jack lowered his hands. “I’ll show you guys what’s in my bag when we reach the portal? By that time I won’t need it anymore.” 

“I swear to God, if it’s one of those weird chia-pets things, I will slap the Irish out of your blood.” Mark threatened. 

“Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.” Jack shrugged and his nervous smile was back. 

“Fine, we promise not to look at it till you show us at the portal.” Bob said. 

“Alright, let’s get back to it, shall we?” Jack went to the back of the group and followed them. Callie looked down at the bag, knowing themselves what was in it, but not knowing what it was used for and wondered why Jack wouldn’t let his friends see it, was it that bad of a thing? 

The hours passed as the men walked, the sun staying place and burning brighter and brighter the further along they got. They rested long enough to finished off a bottle each and were too hot to just sit there and cook in the sun. Jack could have sworn he could see the literal heat come off of the trees in waves, making himself feel even warmer by staring at it. He was thankful his plan of running was shot down, he would not have made it alive by this point. 

“I’m out of water.” Felix sighed after finishing off his last bottle. 

“I ran out an hour ago.” Bob said. 

“I have half of one left.” Mark shook his bottle. 

“I almost have a full one.” Wade said. 

“I have a little left.” Jack held his bottle up, only one more mouthful left. 

“We should be really close to the portal by now if someone needs some of my water.” Wade offered. 

“I’ll take the last granola bar if no one minds.” Jack asked. 

“Go ahead.” Felix took the bar out of his pocket and tossed it to Jack, having left his backpack with his sleeping bag since all he had left by that point was a water and the granola bar. 

“Does anyone smell that?” Bob asked after sniffing the air. 

“If you farted, I will punch you in the dick.” Wade sniffed as well. “Wait a second…”

“That smells like-”

“The portal!” Mark interrupted Felix as they were all able to see the portal. 

“I never thought the reek of that fucking sinkhole would make me so happy!” Jack started running, not caring about the burning sun anymore and dropping his granola bar without a second thought. 

“Fuck yeah!” Felix shouted as he and the others joined Jack. 

“I have never run so fast before!” Bob cheered, all of them nearing the portal. Jack stopped when he reached the edge of the gray vortex, staring down into it. 

“Do you think it’ll work?” He asked when the others caught up. 

“It has to.” Wade said. “Or I will literally sit and cry for five days straight.” 

“Look!” Mark pointed down. 

“I can see them!” Jack exclaimed. 

“It looks just like the end of the sinkhole!” Bob yelled happily. “We did it! We found our way home!” 

“Fuck what’s in your bag! I’m going in!” Felix let out a loud cheer before leaping in. 

“I’m coming, Molly!” Wade shouted, leaping in as well. 

“Finally!” Bob jumped in after Wade. 

“Do you want to go next?” Mark asked, gesturing with both hands. 

“I’m gonna do something first.” Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out the small bottle of whiskey. “I’ve been saving this the whole trip.” Jack chuckled as he started to open it. 

“I see Chica! Hi, Chica! Hi, Amy!” Mark waved as Jack downed the whiskey in one gulp. 

“Wanna jump in together?” Jack asked with a burp, tossing the bottle aside. 

“Why not? It’s big enough. Is Callie coming with us?” Mark asked. 

“Only if they want to.” Jack saw Callie tapping at his shoulder, chirping excitedly and nodding their head. “Looks like I‘ve got a new roommate.” Jack laughed. 

“Let’s go before they think we decided to stay.” Mark took a few steps back. “One the count of three.” 

“One...” Jack started.

“Two…” Mark continued. 

“Three!” Both men screamed and jumped. 

Jack closed his eyes as soon as his feet left the ground, grunting when he immediately slammed into the ground. Was going through the portal that fast? Jack opened his eyes and saw gray. 

“No! No, no, no, no!” Mark cried as he started digging into the grass. “No! Oh God, please, no!” Jack slowly sat up and stared at the grass. “We were so close! We were so close!” Jack felt everything sink to the bottom of his stomach. He felt like he was going to puke. “Come back! Come back, please!” 

Jack simply titled his head back and screamed as loud as he could, their only hope of returning home disappearing right beneath them.  


	10. Molotov

“You have to be fucking shitting me!” Mark screamed. “This all has to be some sick fucking joke!” Mark kept clawing at the ground. “You got me! You fucking got me!” 

Jack just knelt next to Mark, entire body numb, eyes wide and body slumped over. What was he going to do now?

_ “Why do you want to leave so badly?”  _

“Who the fuck is there!?” Mark yelled into the forest. 

“You heard that?” Jack asked, finally blinking. 

“Of course I heard that!” Mark snapped. 

“Have you been hearing that voice the whole time!? I thought that it was just me! Why didn’t you say anything!?” Jack snapped back.

“No! This is the first time I’ve heard that creepy ass voice!” 

“We need to stop yelling at each other!” Jack put his hands over his face and huffed. “Fucking hell, man.” 

_ “Why don’t you want to stay?”  _

“I thought I was just hearing things because of how exhausting the past week has been.” Jack admitted. 

“Great, now I’m going crazy too.” Mark rolled over to his back. “What the fuck are we going to do?” 

“We can head back to the town, maybe there’s another portal somewhere, it might just change places at random times.” Jack suggested.

“Maybe if someone wasn’t so determined to have a fucking shot, we’d be home with the others right now!” Mark scoffed harshly. 

“You could have gone without me! You didn’t have to wait!” Jack got off of the ground.  

“I didn’t want to leave you behind, you dumb fuck!” Mark covered his hands with his face and let out a loud grunt of frustration. 

“What happened to Mr. Fucking Positive!? You’ve spent the entire time saying that we were going to get home and that everything was going to be fine! You were always the one that told us to look on the fucking bright side when we thought everything was going to shit!” 

“That was before we were fucked!” 

“ _ Stop yelling!”  _

Jack and Mark both gasped loudly as they were yanked out of that area and transported into the middle of the forest. 

“The fuck!?” Mark shouted, sitting up. 

“We teleported or someone teleported us.” Jack started looking around. “Mark...look up.” 

“What could possibly...you have to be shitting me.” Mark saw the portal above them, the portal that they fell through in the first place. 

“We’re back at the beginning.” Jack stated. 

“Great! Fan-fucking-tastic!” Mark threw himself back down on the ground. 

“At least we’re closer to the town now.” Jack said, earning a sigh and a soft ‘yeah’ from Mark. “What’s wrong Callie?” Jack asked the creature when they started freaking out. 

“They’re probably still upset about being moved to a-” Mark stopped as they were moved again, finding themselves at their first campsite. 

“What the hell is happening!?” Jack went over to Mark and helped him to his feet. 

“I don’t know, something’s moving us from place to place.” Before Jack could respond they were teleported once again. They both grimaced when they saw the splattered body of the creature who had attacked them at the hotel that stood in front of them. Flies were now hovering over the body and the stench was strong. 

“God, that’s worse than when we saw it land.” Mark groaned, plugging his nose. 

“Why are we here?” Jack asked, voice sounding off since his nose was closed with his fingers as well. 

“It’s like we’re going through everything all over again.” Mark commented. 

“The world might be glitching out.” Jack said right before they were teleported to a new destination, the site of the dead children and mother making Jack shout. 

“This was the one thing I didn’t want to see again!” Jack snapped. 

“Let’s get out of here!” Mark tried to start running but tripped over a rock after they were teleported to the pond. “I’m getting real sick of this shit!” Mark shouted, getting back up and brushing the dirt off of his pants.  

“If this keeps up, we might end up back where the portal was.” Jack said. “The portal might come back as well.” 

“Who’s Mr. Fucking Positive now?” Mark teased, sounding a little harsher than intended. 

“You don’t have to be an ass.” Jack huffed. 

“Can you blame me for being pissy, first the portal goes away and now we’re glitching out like one of our Anti or Dark videos.” Mark turned so he was facing Jack. “I like being in charge of the fake glitching, not randomly having it actually happen in my real life. It’s complete bull-” Mark let out a shout when a vine came out of the water, wrapped itself around his ankle and yank him to the ground. “Fuck!” Mark got out before being dragged into the water. 

“Mark!” Jack quickly kicked off his shoes, slipped off his bag and dove into the pond. Callie sat at the edge and stared into the water, waiting for Jack to return. 

Jack swam as fast as he could and saw Mark getting further and further away in the murky water. The man let out a silent scream in the water when a large salmon with sharp teeth appeared in front of him. He turned himself over and kicked the fish in the face. Jack kicked the fish again and the salmon snarled its teeth at the man before swimming off. Jack started feeling his empty lungs burn a little but pushed past it as he continued swimming down. 

He found Mark floating motionless with the vine still on his ankle. Jack swam to Mark and took the pocket knife out of the man’s pants, going over to the vine and started to saw at it. Jack felt as if he was going to cough with how much pressure was building up in his chest. Finally, the vine was cut off and Jack wrapped his arms around Mark and started swimming up. 

Jack gasped loudly when he broke through the water, the air tasting the best it has in a very long time. He panted as he struggled to swim to the edge of the pond, holding MArk with one arm and paddling with the other. Jack tossed Mark onto the land first before pulling himself out of it. Still panting, Jack went over to Mark and used his hands to pump down on the other man’s chest. Callie went on Mark’s stomach and started bouncing to the same rhythm as Jack. 

“Come on, man. Don’t do this to me.” Jack said, putting his ear near Mark’s mouth and not hearing anything. “Don’t you die on me you son-of-a-bitch!” Jack cried and went back to pumping. “I’ll kill you if you die!” Jack let out a sound of joy when Mark started coughing, water spouting out of his mouth like a fountain. Jack rolled Mark to his side and patted the man’s back.Callie chirped and rubbed their body against Mark’s neck, a soft groaning sound coming from the man. “Thank God.” Jack grabbed his bag and shoes, slipping them on as a voice spoke.  

“Wasn’t that just the dumbest thing you’ve done here?” Someone said harshly. 

“Who the fuck…” Jack looked up and saw a face he would have never expected to see. “You? Why are you here? Did you get sucked in too?” 

“I wouldn’t say ‘suck in’ per say, given that I created this place when I was a child.” The shy fan from the panel stated, crossing his arms and a smirk on his face. 

“You, what?” Jack blinked in confusion. 

“I understand every little part of this world and the one thing that I cannot understand is why you just risked your life to save Mark? You were arguing and yelling at each other. I figured if I got rid of one of you, you’d finally stop.” The fan sighed before suddenly becoming very angry. “You act as if you cared for him when you and the others were so excited to get out of here! All of you couldn’t wait to just leave me!”

“Dude, what are you talking about?” 

“Why save him!? Why care about him!? You have Signe, don’t you!? All of you have someone back at home and you risk your life for him!?” 

“He’s my friend! Of course, I’d save him!” Jack snapped. 

“Unbelievable!” The fan huffed and turned away. 

“What am I missing right now?” Jack asked, getting up and moving closer to the fan. “You said you created this world and by wanting to leave this place, we’re wanting to leave you?” 

“Everyone thought I was a freak because I liked to draw these creatures. Dad said I was creative, mom said I was doomed to be forever alone. How mother would be proud to learn that her little boy could control magic. That her little boy made a whole world to their design. This is how I see the world.” The fan held his arms out. “Gray and filled with creatures of my own design.”

“We just want to go home, man.” Jack said softly. 

“No one ever wants to stay here! Why does everyone want to leave!?” The man grabbed at his hair. “That woman didn’t want to stay, so I brought her children to be with her and she still didn’t want to stay. So, I gave her a gun and told her that you either die or stay with no complaint. She started screaming at me and calling me names and I put the gun in her hands and made her shoot her own children.” The man started laughing while Jack’s jaw dropped. “That shut her up real good and so she wouldn’t have to be alone, I made her shoot herself in the head and left them in that room, a forever reminder of what is to come if people want to leave.” Jack opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t find any words to say. “I test people with the portal and if they try to leave, they end up as one of my creatures. Just like the one you let fall and splatter. He was a very rude man when I told him he couldn’t leave, so he had it coming.” Jack put a hand over his mouth at the memory. That creature was human. They weren’t just human-like, they used to a man just like them. “I decided to let the other three go peacefully since all of you are so nice, but I had to keep you two. You two are my favorite. If I lost you two, I don’t know what I’d do.” 

“I...I...Mark?” Jack watched as Mark sprinted past him and grabbed the fan by the shoulder and turned him around with a harsh pull. Mark gripped both of the man’s shoulders with his hands and started screaming. 

“What in the actual fuck is wrong with you!? You take me away from my family, my girlfriend and the rest of my friend and you act like you’ve done everyone a favor by letting Felix, Wade, and Bob go home without killing him like everyone else here, you sick fuck! Take us back! Take us back right now!” Mark started shaking the fan. 

“My name is Vince.” The fan stated calmly. “And your family will be fine if you never came home, they got over the death of your father, didn’t they?” 

“Dude.” Was all Jack could say before Mark punched Vince across the face. 

“How fucking dare you! My father was a great man! He was strong and brave and the best father I could have ever ask for!” Mark’s eyes started to water up. “How dare you bring his death up! You have no fucking right! I don’t give a shit if you’re a fan or not! You weren’t there! You didn’t see him, you didn’t hold his hand when you got scared or listen to his jokes and laugh till your sides hurt!” Several tears ran down Mark’s face. “You didn’t see him get weaker! You didn’t see his smile fade away as the life went out of him! You didn’t hold your mother as she cried! You didn’t sit in your bed all night long wondering if your father was happier now! Questioning if you would ever be truly happy again!” Mark wiped his nose with the back of his hand and sniffed, swallowing before speaking again. His voice much lower and twice as harsh. “He will always be a thousand times more of a real man than you will ever even hope to be.” Mark stepped away from Vince. “Take us home, right now or I will make you regret ever being conceived.” By this point Jack was next to Mark, his own eyes red and with tears threatening to fall as well. 

“Take us back.” Jack stated with Callie on his shoulder and showing their teeth at Vince. Mark and Jack both looked up when they heard a roar. 

“The fuck?” Mark stumbled away when a large elephant-like monster stepped out of the forest and stood behind Vince. 

“Get them.” Vince said darkly, pointing a finger towards the other two men. 

“Fuck!” Mark and Jack both screamed before running. 

“I’m going to kick Vince in the dick so hard he’ll be tasting his own balls!” Mark yelled. “What are we going to do!?” 

“I don’t-wait! I have an idea, pass me your lighter!” Jack opened his bag and pulled out the wine bottle he had turned into a Molotov cocktail. 

“You are not!” Mark said, a wide smile on his face as he tossed his lighter to Jack.

“Fuck yeah, I am.” Jack used his thumb to slowly turn the wheel of the lighter several times. “Please let Reddit be right for once.” Jack said before flicking the lighter and seeing the small flame appear. “Thank you, internet!” The man stopped and faced the monster, Mark stopping next to him. Jack grinned as he used the small flame to light the end of the piece of cloth. 

“Get wrecked, bitch.” Jack said before throwing the Molotov at the elephant’s face. Mark and Jack shielded their eyes as a fireball blinded them. The elephant let out a cry and ran away as Callie chirped with victory. 

“Fine! You want to go back so badly! Go!” Vince shouted before Mark and Jack felt themselves falling through the ground. 

_ “I’ll make your world into my own and no one will ever get the leave.”  _


	11. The Bag

Jack and Mark both shouted as they fell, feeling nothing like the first time they went through one of these portals created by Vince. They struggled to flip over and saw themselves falling towards the ceiling of the convention’s room, Bob, Wade, and Felix staring down at them. 

They flew several feet into the air and fell back down onto the solid wood floor, grunts coming out of them upon impact. 

“Jack!” 

“Mark!” 

Amy and Signe rushed over to their boyfriends and hugged them tightly. Callie hopped off of Jack’s shoulder as the man wrapped his arms around Signe and buried his face into the crook of her neck while Mark held Amy against himself, curling around the woman. 

“Thank God you’re okay!” Signe cried, her usually perfect eyeliner smudged by her tears. 

“We thought we lost you!” Amy said, voice muffled by Mark’s chest. 

“What happened? Why didn’t you guys come out with us?” Wade asked. 

“We knew you two were last, but there’s no way you waited that long to go through.” Bob added. 

“Your faces are really red.” Felix commented.

“Well...that kind of happens when there’s a large fireball not that far from you.” Mark chuckled weakly. 

“What!?” The others shouted. 

“I had to use the Molotov cocktail on an elephant.” Jack explained. 

“What!?” Amy, Signe, Marzia, Mandy, and Molly all screamed while the men just nodded their heads. 

“Felix, what is he talking about?” Marzia asked. 

“It’s...it’s a really long story.” Felix rubbed the back of his head. 

“We’ll tell you everything after a shower and some sleep in a real bed.” Bob said. 

“Can you at least tell me why all of you reek like you haven’t bathed the entire time you were gone? Where did all of this dirt and grass stains come from?” Molly pointed out the stains and Wade’s clothing. 

“We’ve been in a forest.” Wade said. “Kind of hard to stay clean there.” 

“Amy, you can let go now.” Mark chuckled, running his hand along the top of his girlfriend’s head. 

“No. You’re not leaving again.” Amy stated, hugging tighter. 

“I don’t plan on leaving like that anytime soon.” Mark said softly. 

“I think Jack’s become a permanent part of my body.” Signe held out her arms to show that Jack was the one still holding her. 

“What’s been happening here while we were gone?” Bob asked Mandy. 

“After you guys got sucked up, the sinkhole just closed up and at first everyone thought that maybe it was just a prank or something you guys pulled, but when you didn’t come back…” Mandy let out a sigh. “We all were scared, we thought we would never see you guys again.” 

“We’ve been staying in hotels, praying that you would come back, that you were all just being terrible and dragging out some joke longer than what was needed.” Marzia rubbed her arms, eyes watering up. “Today was our last day of waiting, we needed to go home and...and...” Marzia was sobbing at this point and Felix hugged his girlfriend, whispering that everything was fine now. 

“This building is actually now considered a dangerous zone and no one’s allowed in it, but we’ve been sneaking in every day.” Signe said, looking down when she heard a soft laugh. 

“That’s my badass girlfriend.” Jack smiled, finally releasing the woman. 

“Guys!” The group looked over and saw two men running towards them.

“Tyler? Ethan? What’s up?” Mandy asked. 

“Something really weird is happening outside, like, fucked up weird.” Tyler stated. 

“It’s astronomically fucked up!” Ethan added, waving his hands wildly as he spoke.

“If the cops are here, we can just run.” Amy said. 

“My girlfriend is more badass.” Mark said to Jack with a chuckle. 

“It’s not the cops! It’s something completely different!” Ethan’s voice cracked from speaking so loud and fast. 

“What is it?” Molly asked. 

“The sky’s gray!” Tyler and Ethan yelled together. 

“Gray?” The women were confused while the men all shared a look of concern. 

“No fucking way.” Mark groaned. 

“You don’t think-” Jack was cut off when everything started shaking. 

“Another earthquake!?” Marzia exclaimed. 

“Ethan, look out!” Bob called when he saw that part of the ceiling was cracking away above the young man. Ethan looked up and let out a scream when he saw a large piece of the ceiling break away and fall towards him. Tyler cursed and grabbed Ethan, diving as far as he could away from the ceiling, scrunching his legs up to avoid getting them smashed. 

“Thanks, man.” Ethan said. 

“I’m going to literally vomit.” Tyler groaned

“We need to get out of here!” Mark yelled and picked Amy up, running towards the exit of the building. 

“I can run on my own!” Amy shouted as the others started running as well. 

“We have to find Victor.” Jack said after everyone got out of the building and Mark put Amy back on the ground. 

“Victor?” Wade asked. 

“That shy fan from the panel. He’s the cause of all of this. He put us into the world that he created and he’s pissed that we all left him.” Jack explained. 

“I would love the full story on this.” Mandy said. 

“Later, I promise. The gray sky is a bit more of a concern at the moment.” Bob said.

“Where’s Callie!?” Jack suddenly cried. 

“Who’s Callie?” Signe asked. 

“His pet rat, squirrel, thing.” Felix answered. “They’ve been with him since day one.” 

“They were with us when we fell, where did they go?” Jack started frantically looking around. 

“Callie always comes back, we’ll look for them later. You said it yourself, we need to find Victor.” Mark said. 

“You ladies need to go get somewhere safe with Tyler and Ethan, we know how this stuff works.” Wade said. 

“We’re not leaving you.” Molly stated. 

“We’ve already thought we lost you once, we’re not dealing with that again.” Mandy added. 

“Um...dudes...the hell are those?” Ethan asked, pointing at a small crowd of creatures. The once human monsters all let out a screech and ran towards the group. 

“Get out of here, now!” Felix tried to pull Marzia away. One of the creatures got close to the woman and Marzia leaned back on a leg and kicked the other one out, slamming her foot into the creature’s face and knocking them down. Marzia let out a ‘humph’ and fixed her hair. “That was so hot.” Felix said in awe. 

“Back off!” Mark held one of his fists and used the elbow of that arm to smash it into the side of another creature’s head when it got too close to Amy. 

“Bring it!” Signe screamed and jumped on the back of one of the taller creature, pounding her fists on the top of its head. 

“Your breath smells like ass!” Jack shouted as he pushed a creature away from him. One of the creatures grabbed his bag and started pulling him back. “Let go of me!” The creature managed to get the bag off of Jack and attempted to open it. “Don’t!” Jack tackled the creature, the bag flying away from it. 

“Get him, honey!” Bob laughed as he held a creature still as Mandy punch it’s stomach several times. 

“My bag!” Jack shouted when a different creature picked it up. He left the unconscious creature that was beneath him and he ran after the other one. He saw that Wade had three different creatures attacking him. Jack quickly ran over to Wade and yanked one of the creatures away, thankful to see Marzia, Felix, and Signe running towards him. “I have to get my bag!” Jack shouted at them.

“You can get your weird shit after this!” Felix snapped, struggling to hold back one of the creatures as Wade scrambled away to recover. 

“Trust me! I need it! Keep Signe safe!” Jack said before taking off. “Get back here!” He screamed after the creature with his bag. “You little bitch!” He added as he dove towards the smaller creature, knocking it over. “Give me that!” Jack yanked his bag back and punched the creature in the face until it stopped moving. Jack held a hand over its mouth and felt something warm come out of it. “Good, still alive, you shit.” He sighed and started opening his bag. 

“Ow!” Jack recognized Signe’s voice and looked behind him, seeing his girlfriend being held by two creatures. 

“I’m coming!” Jack started to get up, but someone else’s voice made him stop.

“Now you’re trying to save her?” Jack snapped his head and saw Vince several feet in front of him, one of his hands behind his back.

“You fucking-”

“Ah-ah-ah.” Vince wagged a finger in front of him when Jack. “I suggest staying right where you are or your friends are in for a really bad time.” 

“Let go of me!” Jack heard Felix scream and didn’t even have to look to know what was happening. His friends were all being held against their wills. 

“What do you want?” Jack asked through gritted teeth. 

“Friendship. Someone who will never leave me alone. You.” Victor chuckled a little. “You’re too nice for everyone else in this world. You have Callie and more back in my world.” Vince showed that he was holding Callie by their neck fur. 

“Let them go! They have nothing to do with this!” Jack’s hand was still in his bag, fingertips brushing the item at the bottom of it. 

“Why are you so naive to believe that everyone’s great? How could you even think that those people behind you actually care about you?” Vince scoffed. “They’re all rude and mean and violent towards anything that they don’t agree with.” 

“You don’t know them.” Jack said harshly. 

“My bruised cheek says a few things about Mark and the other three were so eager to leave you behind without making sure you’d make it through and the women didn’t even try to find you, they just sat around on their asses and did nothing.” 

“Because we can travel to different fucking worlds!” Signe snapped. 

“I suggest shutting your mouth, the men are speaking.” Vince said. 

“Do not talk to her like that!” Jack gripped the item. 

“I’ll do whatever the hell I please. I’m the one with the power here. Any second now all of my magical abilities will kick in and no one can stop me.” Vince held up his other hand and a small spark came from it. “How does burning down this whole city sound? I think that’ll send a point to everyone.” 

“Don’t you even think about it! My friends and the people who live in this city you want to destroy have nothing to do with how fucked up you are!” Jack screamed, shocked to see the genuine hurt in Vince’s face. 

“I’m not fucked up.” Vince stated. “It’s everyone else who’s fucked up! Who would harass a child for drawing!? Everyone in this damned planet! All because I didn’t draw what was expected of me! Because I had an imagination! Because I wanted to rework animals to be more efficient and stylized!” Callie let out a cry as Vince squeezed them. 

“You’re hurting Callie! Let them go!” Jack snapped. 

“Why do you care about a fucking rodent so much!? There are endless ones just like it!” Vince started to shake Callie. 

“Stop it!”

“Leave them alone!”  

“Cut it out!”

“Let them go!” 

Jack was happy to hear his friends shouting their protests as well. Even the women were yelling and they’ve never even met Callie till just now. 

“All of you are unbelievable!” Vince huffed. He looked at Callie when he heard a growl. “What?” Callie let out a screech, flashing their teeth before biting Vince’s hand. 

“Go, Callie!” Jack cheered as Callie climbed to Vince’s face and started clawing at it. 

“You shit!” Vince grabbed Callie and chucked them against a nearby car. Callie made a sickening ‘thump’ against the vehicle and fell to the ground, body limp. 

“Callie!”Jack cried. 

“You monster!” 

“You’re heartless!” 

“You’re pathetic!”

“Again, you defend that thing!” Vince wiped the blood from his face with a palm. “It’s just a mindless creature! Nothing more than something to be killed and eaten!” 

“Let my friend go.” Jack said softly, eyes burning with a harsh glare. 

“What was that?”

“I said.” Jack slowly stood up, hand still in bag. “Let them go.” 

“Are you really trying to call the shots here?” Vince said mockingly. “I thought you were just naive, not stupid!” Vince started laughing. “Get back down before I have my creatures tear your friends apart.” 

“Jack! What are you doing!?” Signe cried. 

“Last chance...let them go.” Jack warned. 

“Oh, yes, because I’m so scared of a scrawny Irish man with green hair and an accent. I’m shaking in my shoes.” Vince said in a high-pitched tone. 

“How about being scared of a scrawny Irish man-” Jack removed his hand and the item from the bag and aimed it at Vince. “-with a gun.” 


	12. Red

Everyone was in stunned silence and just stared. No one could believe what they were seeing. No one could believe that Jack, out of all people, has had a gun on his person for almost a week. And no one could feel what Jack was feeling at the moment.

Jack’s body was trembling and his heart felt as if it was threatening to literally beat out of his chest. He couldn’t blame his heart, he wouldn’t want to be in his body either if he could choose so. Jack’s breath was also shaky as he struggled to get air into his lungs, his lower lip quivering a little and stomach wanting to empty itself of everything in it. He couldn’t believe that he was doing this. That he was standing in front of another human being with a gun pointed at his head. Jack’s fired a gun like this before but it was at tin cans or wooden targets, never another person. 

“Let them go.” Jack stated, voice sounding stronger than he felt. 

“Do it! Shot me! End my miserable life!” Vince held his arms out and started walking closer to Jack. “You’ll be no better than me! You’ll just be as heartless and pathetic as you claim me to be!” Jack only stood there, unable to keep his hand still. “I’m shocked, Jack, I thought you’d act like a martyr and just go with me. I didn’t think you’d have it in you to point a deadly weapon at another person. At another man the same age as you. You’d practically be killing yourself, wouldn’t be difficult for anyone else to do that to you, considering how much of a pain in the ass you are.” Vince let out a laugh. “You’re always so loud and your accent’s irritating when heard for an extended period of time. You’re not even that good looking, how could that kind of a fucked up face ever have a girlfriend? Unless she’s just with you for the money?” 

“You can fuck right off to hell!” Signe screamed. “You know nothing about Jack! You’ve only seen him on your computer screen! He’s an amazing guy and a million times better looking than you could ever create in your fucked up imagination!” Signe spat on the ground. “And for someone so desperate to have Jack stay with them, you sure love to insult him and push him away! That’s why you don’t have any friends you worthless, pathetic, sack of rotten shit!” Jack couldn’t hold back a small smile while the others cheered for Signe and voicing their agreements. 

“I warned you.” Vince snapped his fingers and Signe let out a cry of pain. Jack quickly turned around and saw blood dripping down Signe’s face, a gash on her forehead. His heart dropped when he saw that she was crying, the blood mixing in with her tears. 

“Signe!” Jack cried and started running towards her, stopping when several creatures went between him and his girlfriend. “Get out of my way!” Jack screamed, now aiming the gun towards the creatures. 

“Shot them and I’ll have her killed!” Vince shouted. “Good boy.” Vince chuckled when Jack lowered his gun. “It is sad to see that, isn’t it?” Vince said as the creatures parted to allow Jack to see Signe, her body slumped over and she was sniffing. “Her pretty little face is now damaged, taking away the only good thing about her.” 

“Because you know her so fucking well.” Jack’s grip on the gun tightened. Jack faced Vince and his eyes went wide when he saw Mark break free from the creature holding him and the man charged at Vince. Vince only smirked before pulling out a knife and stabbed Mark in the side, quickly yanking the blade out and shoving the man to the ground and away from him.

“Mark! Oh, my God! Mark! No! Mark!” Amy screamed as she struggled to be released. The others screaming and struggling as well. “You bastard! You disgusting bastard! How could you!?” 

“Have we learned our lesson yet!?” Vince shouted. “We don’t-” Vince’s statement was cut off by a loud ‘bang’ and the man fell to the ground, screaming in pain and holding now his bleeding leg. “Oh, my God! You fucking shot me! You shot my fucking leg!” 

“Have we learned our lesson yet?” Jack said harshly, still holding up the gun. 

“Holy shit.” Felix said.

“He...he actually shot him.” Wade added. 

“Let. My. Friends. Go. Now.” Jack emphasized every word he spoke with each step he took towards Vince. 

“You’re psycho! You’re a fucking maniac!” Vince cried. 

“Let them go!” Jack screamed.

“Fine!” Vince snapped his fingers. 

“We’re fine, Jack!” Bob called from behind, knowing that Jack shouldn’t look away from Vince at the moment. 

“Mark!” Amy ran over to Mark and helped the man apply pressure to his wound. 

“I try to be nice. You’ve fucking hammered that into my head by saying over and over again about how ‘so nice’ I am and yet the moment I don’t let you have your fucking way, I’m suddenly the bad guy, because I don’t want to abandon my family and friend, because I don’t want to drop everything that I’m doing in my life to do whatever you want, I’m suddenly the fucking bad guy! I’m not the one who’d killed people because they didn’t agree with me, I’m not the one who took people away from their homes and loved ones so they could live in a twisted world that I created with monsters and things that could kill them! I am not the bad guy!” Jack pointed the gun at Vince’s face. “You are.” 

“Hello? Yes, there’s been an emergency. Someone's been stabbed and another shot.” Marzia said into her phone while Felix blocked her from Vince with his body. “Police will be needed, please hurry.” 

“The cops do not need to be involved! This is a personal matter!” Vince was about to snap his fingers, but Jack shot his hand. “Fuck!” Vince screamed and held his hand, unable to move his fingers. 

“You’ve already hurt two of my friends, like hell I’m letting you do that again.” Jack said before shooting Vince’s other hand. 

“What the fuck!?” Vince cried, curling up into a ball. 

“Your magic clearly comes from your hands. Can’t use your magic without being able to move them.” Jack stated. 

“Do you have any mercy!?” Vince screamed. 

“You mean the mercy you never gave that mother and her children? Or all of the people you turned into your own slaves? Or for Callie!? Or for Signe or Mark!? You’re asking me to have mercy on someone who’s never given it in their entire life!?” Jack was crying at this point. “You’re a heartless monster and you’re going to spend the rest of your worthless life in jail!” Jack saw flashing lights of red and blue, he tossed the gun aside and walked away from Vince. Seeing that the creatures had returned to what they looked like when they were human and now were all lying dead on the ground. The sky was also returning to its normal shade of blue. 

“Jack, Jack are you okay?” Signe asked. 

“You’re the one bleeding.” Jack used his hand to tuck some stray hair behind Signe’s ear. 

“You just shot a man three times, I have a scratch, I’m a little more concerned for you.” Signe said. 

“Give me a moment.” Jack moved away from Signe and vomited. 

“Nice to know I’m not the only one who’s puked this entire time.” Felix laughed weakly. 

“I think I might join him.” Ethan groaned. 

“Same.” Tyler added. 

“So many dead bodies.” Molly whimpered. 

“There’s in a better place now.” Wade said. 

“Everyone get on the ground!” A police officer screamed. “On the ground, now!” 

_ x~x~x _

“The surgery went well and he’s on his way to a full recovery. His movements will need to be limited and he can’t stress himself too much.” The doctor spoke to Amy about Mark while Jack and the others sat in the waiting room of the hospital. 

“Thank you, doctor.” Amy nodded her head and joined the others.

“My head hurts.” Signe groaned, rubbing her temples.

“Thankfully it was just a bad scratch.” Molly said, leaning her head against Wade’s shoulder. 

“I’m glad Mark’s okay. I’d have to pay Vince a visit if he wasn’t.” Amy stated, arms crossed and eyes hard with a glare.

“Jack? Are you okay?” Tyler asked the man, seeing that he was staring off into space.

“He shot a man three times today, he’s probably going to be a little off for a while.” Molly said. 

“I’m fine.” Jack stated.

“We’ll get you some counseling, we can’t let this hurt you. I refuse to give Vince that satisfaction.” Signe said. “Plus, I love you too much to see you in pain.” She added with a quick kiss to Jack’s cheek.

“Gross.” Ethan made a silly face at the two, making everyone laugh a little. 

“So, no police interviews or questions...all we said was ‘magic’ and they let us go.” Bob said, not believing what he said. 

“And we’re not allowed to tell anyone about what happened.” Wade added. 

“Why do I have a strange feeling that we’re missing something?” Felix said. 

“What are you saying? That there are more people like Vince?” Everyone froze and looked at Jack. “You guys are joking, right?” 

“The likelihood of him being the only one is very slim.” Mandy said. 

“Maybe one of us has magic?” Marzia said in awe. 

“Wouldn’t we know about by now?” Felix asked. 

“Sometimes we don’t know things about ourselves till we’re older.” Marzia stated. 

“Mr. Mcloughlin?” Another doctor called. 

“Yes?” Jack stood as the doctor walked over to him. 

“Your...animal friend, they’ve made a full recovery.” The doctor flinched in shock when Jack shouted with joy. 

“Can I see them!? Please!” Jack gasped loudly as Callie appeared on the doctor’s shoulder. “Callie!” Jack grabbed Callie and hugged them. Callie chirped very loudly and tried their best to hug back. 

“Excuse me, doctor?” Signe went up to the woman. “But I thought that Callie was going to...well…” Signe let her sentence trail off. 

“They were, all of their bones were broken most of their organs were shutting down but right after your partner saw them, they started healing at a fascinating rate.” Signe blinked several times and looked at Jack. 

“Are we allowed to visit Mark?” Jack asked the doctor. “I gotta know what he wants to read and play while he’s stuck here.” 

“I have a feeling that if you see him, he won’t be staying long.” The doctor chuckled and lead Jack away. 

“What did she mean by that?” Amy asked as she got up to follow. 

“It seems our Jack is a little more magical than we thought.” Signe let out a light laugh.


End file.
